CH  TIM  A 
J^^tt  ^JHki  ~4fc9Ch»  j^^i*  ^      ^^^&«  JH^fcnx 


The  Mysterious  and 
Marvellous 

VICTOR  MURDOCK 


China  the  Mysterious 
and  Marvellous 


APPROACH  TO  A  CITY  GATE,  CHUNG  KING 


China  the  Mysterious 
and  Marvellous 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

LONDON    AND    EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


Printed  in  th«  United  State*  of  America 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  75  Princes  Street 


THAT  IS  TO  SAY— 

CHINA,  after  resisting  change  for  forty  cen- 
turies, is  at  last  changing.  An  oriental 
republic  has  supplanted  an  ancient  orien- 
tal monarchy.  The  old  dragon  of  dynastic  mis- 
rule is  dead,  and  an  age-old  subject  race  is  trying 
to  conform  to  the  requirements  of  democracy. 
The  transition  from  the  old  way  to  the  new  way 
is  unique  and  so  variously  manifested  that  per- 
haps the  best  record  of  the  transition  is  by 
flash — a  quick  exposure  of  detached  and  fleeting 
scenes  in  the  every-day  life  of  the  people.  So 
the  views  in  this  volume  seek  to  set  down,  topi- 
cally and  currently,  the  impressions  of  a  travel- 
ler to  the  far  interior  of  China  and  incidentally 
to  Peking,  the  capital. 

The  cultural  differences  between  the  Orient 
and  the  Occident  render  China  to  a  westerner's 
eyes  mysterious  as  the  factor  of  magnitude  in 
the  country's  area,  its  population  and  its  works 
render  it  marvellous.  No  change  in  government 

5 


2218682 


THAT  IS  TO  SAY 

will  make  China  less  so  in  either  respect.  With 
stabilization  of  the  democratic  form,  and  with 
the  quickened  growth  of  Christianity  through- 
out the  Republic  which  I  believe  must  follow, 
China  will  change,  but  China,  when  changed,  as 
in  the  period  of  transition,  must  remain  China, 
mysterious  and  marvellous. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.  V.  M. 


CONTENTS 

THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

I.  The  Orient,  Labour  and  Christianity   .  11 

II.  A  Qualified  Racial  Friendship    ...  18 

III.  A  Film  of  New  and  Old  Japan    ...  24 

IV.  China's  Joss  Worship 29 

LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

V.  Crude  Farming,  Fanciful  Legends  .    .  35 

VI.  Absorption,  a  Chinese  Specialty     .     .  41 

VII.  Rain  and  Revolution 48 

VIII.  Wrongs  of  Chinese  Women    ....  55 

NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

IX.  Into  the  Bandit  Country 62 

X.  The  Home  of  a  Dragon  Prince    ...  67 
XL                 Handling  the  Yangtse  Junks   ....  74 

XII.  A  Station  Without  a  Railroad    ...  80 

DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

XIII.  The  Yangtse  Gorges 88 

XIV.  Men's  Battle  With  a  River    ....  93 

XV.  A  Case  of  Human  Nature    ....  99 

XVI.  The  Hope  of  Democracy 105 

FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

XVII.  Saving  a  Chinese  City 112 

XVIII.  The  Beggars'  Hong 119 

XIX.  The  Commerce  of  Szechuan    ....  125 

XX.  The  Doom  of  Geomancy 132 

7 


CONTENTS 

SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

XXL  A  Chinese  Party 139 

XXII.  A  Strange  Ceremony 145 

XXIII.  China's  Enemies— Dirt  and  Graft    .     .  151 

XXIV.  The  Way  of  Chinese  Bandits    ...  157 

CHINA  WHICH  IS  NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

XXV.  Land  and  Democracy 164 

XXVI.  Caravans  from  Thibet 171 

XXVII.  Wages  and  Living  Costs 178 

XXVIII.  The  Road  to  Cheng-Tu 185 

CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

XXIX.  China's  Great  Error 192 

XXX.  Cities  That  Never  Die 200 

XXXI.  The  Chinese  Printer 207 

XXXII.  A  Certain  Rich  Man  in  Wanhsien    .  214 

SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

XXXIII.  The  Evil  Spirit  of  the  Yangtse    .    .  222 

XXXIV.  The  Courage  of  Caste  Conviction    .    .  230 

XXXV.  A  Chinese  General's  Job 238 

XXXVI.  The  Fiction  of  Royal  Blood    ....  245 

NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

XXXVII.  A  Chinese  President 252 

XXXVIII.  The  Dead  Dynasty 258 

XXXLX.        A  Chinese  Congress 266 

XL.  The  Habit  of  Breaking  Loose    ...  274 

PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

XLL  Politics  and  Nanking 281 

XLIL  The  Lesson  of  the  Great  Wall     ...  287 

XLIII.          China's  Chief  Reformer 293 

XLIV.  American  Traders  in  the  Orient     .     .  301 

XLV.  The  Leaven  of  East  and  West    ...  306 

8 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing 
Page 

APPROACH  TO  A  CITY  GATE,  CHUNG  KING    .    .    .  Title 

TRANSPORTATION  IN  INTERIOR  CHINA 48 

THE  CARRIER  COOLIE 48 

JUNKS  SAILING  IN  THE  BACK  CURRENT    ....  88 

THE  TRACKERS  OP  THE  YANGTSE 88 

JUNKS  WAITING  AT  THE  TCHING  TAN  RAPIDS    .    .  112 

A  JUNK  IN  THE  RAPIDS 112 

THE  TEEMING  LIFE  OF  SZECHUAN 150 

FAMOUS  YEH-TAN  RAPIDS  AT  Low  WATER    .    .    .  192 

HSIEN-TAN    RAPIDS,    UPPER   YANGTSE,    AT    Low 

LEVEL   STAGE 222 

LIMESTONE  CLIFFS  OF  THE  BELLOWS  GORGE  .  282 


IF  one  of  my  trade  union  friends  in  America 
should  gather  together  all  the  organized 
labour  men  of  his  acquaintance  some  Sunday 
and  see  that  they  all  went  to  church,  they  would 
fill  every  church  in  their  town  to  overflowing,  of 
course.  They  would  also  create  a  sensation. 
Now,  the  organized  labour  men  would  do  just 
that  thing  if  they  could  have  seen  what  I  have 
seen  in  Tokyo,  Kobe  and  other  places  in  Japan. 

There  is  an  explanation  to  be  tied  to  this  sort 
of  a  statement,  of  course.  It  is  this:  There  is 
so  much  to  be  seen  in  Japan  that  you  haven't 
any  time  to  think,  and  the  thought  about  organ- 
ized labour  was  the  first  connected  one  I  had  had 
for  a  week.  In  the  first  place,  as  you  travel  into 
the  Orient,  you  can  feel  the  guy-ropes  of  civili- 
zation giving  away  hourly;  in  fact,  by  the  time 
you  have  reached  Japan  you  are  cut  loose  for 
fair  and,  bewildered,  your  mind  refuses  to  work. 

It  is  all  different — absolutely.  The  difference 
11 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

can  not  be  described.  It  never  will  be.  I  can 
just  give  glimpses  of  it.  For  one  thing,  hu- 
manity goes  down  on  its  heels.  The  nation 
squats — at  work,  at  play  and  at  rest.  It  sleeps 
on  mats,  with  pillows  about  as  big  as  two  bricks 
and  as  hard.  The  ceilings  are  all  low.  Most  of 
the  traffic  is  on  long  two-wheeled  trucks.  Every- 
where you  see  a  single  man  pushing  as  much  as 
a  ton  along,  sometimes  up  very  steep  hills. 
When  this  is  varied,  it  is  in  the  shape  of  a 
similar  truck  pulled  by  a  stocky,  and  invariably 
vicious  Siberian  stallion.  The  majority  of  the 
people  are  desperately  poor.  In  the  summer 
season  the  labourers  do  not  wear  much,  many 
of  them  are  all  but  naked.  They  make  the  thing 
we  know  as  modesty  quite  a  complicated  product 
of  society.  The  nation  is  chock  full  of  people, 
and  they  are  all  busy.  They  do  not  think  as 
we  do,  they  do  not  dress  as  we  do,  nor  eat  our 
food.  Their  worship  is  not  intelligible  to  us  in 
any  satisfactory  degree — it  is  idolatrous  in 
large  part.  Yet  this  civilization  has  the  very 
best  of  railroads,  fine  street  car  systems,  the 
smallest  towns  have  electric  lights,  and  there 
are  first-class  water  systems,  and  to  back  it  up 
is  one  of  the  best  armies  and  navies  in  the  world. 
You  take  off  your  hat  to  Japan  because  she 
has  done  so  much,  and  so  much  more  than  the 

12 


THE  ORIENT,  LABOUR  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

rest  of  the  Orient,  and  then  you  put  the  hard 
condition  on  her  that  she  must  do  justice  to 
labour,  and  justice  to  labour  on  the  occidental 
standard.  It  is  either  that  or  a  world  cataclysm. 
And  I  don't  believe  in  the  cataclysm. 

I  dug  out  this  thought  sitting  in  a  sleeper. 
All  around  me  were  Japanese  in  flowing  gowns 
and  two-toed  socks — first-class  passengers  and 
very  prosperous  looking — and  rather  high- 
headed.  The  porter  was  making  down  the 
berths,  which  are  almost  as  shallow  as  saucers, 
and  I  was  figuring  on  sleeping  with  my  clothes 
on.  The  man  in  the  seat  next  to  mine  was  put- 
ting his  pajamas  on  in  the  aisle  unblushingly, 
and  just  beyond  him  two  pretty  Japanese  girls 
were  sitting  on  the  floor  smoking  cigarettes. 

This  thought  struck  me  like  lightning  out  of 
the  blue — that  the  Orient  must  either  take  over 
Christianity  and  democracy  (and  they  are  the 
same  thing)  or  the  west  will  have  to  make  a 
fight  for  it. 

For  you  don't  get  very  far  into  the  Orient 
before  this  Christianity  idea  strikes  you  like  a 
slap  in  the  face.  The  east  can  use  all  the  me- 
chanical devices  which  make  for  progress  as 
easily  and  as  effectively  as  the  west — but  these 
mechanical  devices  can  not  be  absorbed  into 
society  and  assimilated  by  society  without 

13 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA-^TAPAN 

Christianity  and  democracy.  Now  it  is  a  two 
and  two  make  four  proposition  that  a  machine 
which  displaces  a  half  dozen  men  in  a  country 
like  Japan,  which  has  an  overplus  of  labour,  is 
a  dastard  thing.  There  is  only  one  way  to  meet 
the  problem — and  that  is  by  caring  for  labour — 
and  that  can't  be  done  by  adding  more  machin- 
ery or  scrapping  that  already  at  work.  There 
is  only  one  way  to  care  for  labour,  and  that  is  oft 
the  Christian  basis  that  the  labourer  is  worthy 
of  his  hire  and  sequentially  that  all  labour  is 
justly  compensated  only  when  the  Christian 
virtues — and  chief  among  them  a  practical, 
workaday  brotherhood — are  put  into  the  equa- 
tion. Or  if  you  want  it  in  more  concrete  form 
— a  nation  must  work  to  bestow  a  living  wage, 
to  shorten  the  hours  of  labour,  to  make  working 
conditions  sanitary  and  decent,  and  to  see  that 
all  are  employed,  that  children  are  not,  and 
above  all  to  decree,  not  only  in  law,  but  in  prac- 
tice, that  flesh  and  blood,  that  is  labour  is  not  a 
commodity  to  be  bought  and  sold,  but  is  a  right 
inherent  in  the  process  of  living.  Whatever  we 
have  of  this  in  the  west — and  we  have  consid- 
erable— we  owe  to  Christianity.  One  is  not  so 
apt  to  see  it  as  vividly  in  the  west  as  he  is 
when  he  moves  away  and  looks  back  at  it.  It 
is  then  plain  enough.  All  the  mechanical  de- 

14 


THE  ORIENT, 'LABOUR  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

vices  I  saw  in  Japan — and  they  are  many — were 
being  run  with  as  much  facility  as  you  will  see 
them  in  America,  but  the  labour  conditions 
are  unnerving.  They  are  unChristian. 

Of  course,  I  can  hear  somebody  saying  just  at 
this  point,  "He  is  overstating  his  point.    He  is 
letting  his  sympathies  run  away  with  him."    I 
am  doing  nothing  of  the  kind.    I  am  stating 
a  perfectly  demonstrable   condition.    I  have 
watched  five  hundred  Japanese  men,  women  and 
children  coaling  a  vessel  at  Nagasaki.    They 
started  in  at  9  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  worked 
until  5  o'clock  that  night.    On  each  barge  were 
about  fifty  people.    They  ran  the  barge  along- 
side and  put  up  a  ladder.    On  the  ladder  they 
stationed  twenty-five  men,  women  and  children. 
Twenty  formed  themselves  in  a  row  on  the 
barge.     Two   men  loaded  half-bushel   baskets 
with  shovels,  two  others  lifted  them  to  the  first 
man,  who  passed  them  on  to  the  second,  and  so 
on  up  the  ladder  into  the  ship — the  line  passing 
thirty-six  to  forty  baskets  a  minute — for  eight 
hours.    About  half  the  time  it  rained  pitchforks 
on  them.    Are  they  used  to  it?    Of  course,  they 
are.    But  in  the  last  two  hours  I  saw  young 
girls,  bright,  intelligent,  tender  girls,  who  were 
ready  to  drop  in  their  tracks. 

Several  people  told  me  that  this  was  one  of 
15 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

the  "most  interesting  sights"  in  the  east.  I 
went  up  to  Bishop  Robinson  of  the  Methodist 
church  (he  is  bishop  of  India)  and  asked: 
"What  do  you  think  of  this?" 

He  said:  "I  think  it  is  awful." 

I  asked:  "Was  it  ever  intended  that  man 
should  be  a  beast  of  burden  ?" 

He  answered:  "It  never  was." 

And  it  never  was.  If  there  is  any  unChris- 
tian  country  in  the  world  that  doesn't  make  him 
one,  I  never  heard  of  it,  and  if  there  is  a  Chris- 
tian country  where  the  tendency  is  not  always 
away  from  that  condition,  I  do  not  know  where 
it  is.  It  was  that  thought  which  gave  me  the 
fancy  about  the  labour  union  men  storming  the 
churches.  Christianity  is  far  and  away  their 
best  friend. 

I  believe  the  east  will  take  Christianity.  Of 
course,  the  missionaries  are  few  among  the  mil- 
lions of  the  east,  and  they  have  a  hard  time  get- 
ting their  seeds  to  sprout.  But  they  will  sprout. 
It  is  a  little  leaven,  but  it  will  leaven  the  whole 
lump.  But  if  the  east  rejects  the  religion  which 
has  dignified  labour,  then  there  is  coming  an 
industrial  war  which  will  shake  the  world. 
Japan  is  leading  the  way  for  the  Orient  to  throw 
its  teeming  millions  into  machine  production — 
without  limitation  on  hours  of  labour  or  restric- 

16 


THE  ORIENT,  LABOUR  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

tion  on  age  of  workers,  and  free  from  the  cost 
of  decent  conditions.  Against  this  flood  of  pro- 
duction the  west  must  protect  itself,  but  it  must 
also  preserve  that  which  has  given  labour  its 
right — that  is  Christianity.  The  best  way  to 
preserve  it  is  to  inoculate  the  east  with  it. 

On  the  ship  coming  across  the  Pacific  a  good 
deal  of  caste  develops.  There  are  a  good  many 
missionaries  aboard,  and  those  who  are  not  mis- 
sionaries are  terribly  afraid  that  somebody  will 
mistake  them  for  missionaries.  There  is,  quietly 
and  under  cover,  a  lot  of  fun  poked  at  the  mis- 
sionaries by  the  commercial  class. 

It  rather  amuses  me.  For  I  think  I  know 
that  the  east  would  eventually  eat  the  west  up, 
industrially  and  commercially,  were  it  not  for 
these  quiet,  praying,  hymn-singing  folk,  these 
self -same*  missionaries. 


17 


n 

A  QUALIFIED  RACIAL  FRIENDSHIP 

ONE  of  the  first  things  you  run  across  in 
Japan  is  the  way  the  resident  white  peo- 
ple swallow  when  the  newcomer  compli- 
ments the  Japanese  in  their  presence.  The 
resident  white  man  down  under  his  skin  doesn't 
like  the  Japanese  nation.  Of  course,  he  doesn't 
confess  it;  in  fact,  ordinarily  you  couldn't  pull 
the  confession  out  of  him  with  a  cork-screw. 
But  the  dislike  is  there,  just  the  same,  and  any- 
body who  can  tell  a  ham  from  a  hand-spike  can 
see  that  it  is. 

You  begin  to  pick  it  up  out  in  California  be- 
fore you  start  to  the  Orient.  Any  American 
who  visits  the  western  coast  will  bear  me  out 
in  the  statement  that  one  of  the  favorite  con- 
tentions of  the  Californian  is  that  a  Chinese  is 
much  more  desirable  than  the  Japanese ;  that  he 
is  more  given  to  honesty  and  fidelity  and  so 
forth.  Well,  that  contention  is  given  the  loud 
pedal  in  the  Orient.  The  white  man  extols  the 

18 


A  QUALIFIED  RACIAL  FRIENDSHIP 

Chinaman,  and  takes  on  a  grim  silence  when 
someone  extols  the  Japanese. 

Now,  the  real  trouble  is  that  the  Jap  has 
been  seriously  asserting  his  right  to  equality, 
and  that  the  white  man  doesn't  like. 

I  spoke  commendingly  of  Japan's  progress  at 
Kyoto,  and  a  theretofore  quiescent  white  man 
erupted  with:  "Don't  do  it;  they're  puffed  out 
of  shape  already." 

An  Englishman  said  to  me:  "We  fought  for 
our  progress;  the  advantages  we  have  in  the 
sciences,  in  government,  in  industry,  we  Anglo- 
Saxons  bled  for  during  generations.  The  Jap- 
anese came  along  and  appropriated  the  results 
of  our  labour.  I  would  not  help  them  so  much 
as  by  raising  my  finger." 

I  do  not  find  in  books,  and  I  have  not  found 
here  in  Japan,  the  reason  why  Japan  blossomed 
forth  as  she  did.  As  late  as  1859  the  country 
was  sealed;  that  is,  foreigners  were  absolutely 
barred,  and  had  been  for  hundreds  of  years. 
But  Japan  suddenly  broke  loose,  and  one  of  the 
chief  determinate  factors  in  western  civilization 
appearing  to  be  military  power,  she  bought  a 
few  ships  and  hitched  up  her  chair.  She  swiped 
the  ancient  empire  of  China  across  the  face,  and 
then  trimmed  the  mighty  Russia  with  neatness 
and  dispatch,  and  has  since  been  trying  to  find 

19 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

the  money  to  help  pay  the  expenses  of  the  picnic. 
She  butted  into  the  European  war  long  enough 
to  put  a  tap  on  the  point  of  Germany's  chin  in 
China,  in  memory  of  an  old  insult,  but  has  other- 
wise remained  docile.  And  yet  every  ambitious 
white  nation  on  earth  is  keeping  an  eye  on 
Japan,  and  not  the  least  watchful  among  them 
are  her  dearest  friends — England  included.  The 
attitude  of  the '  individual  white  man  is  the 
same ;  he  is  a  friend  of  the  Japanese,  but — 

From  the  beginning  of  western  civilization 
the  white  man  has  used  the  same  formula  for 
everybody.  He  assured  the  American  Indian 
that  he  was  his  friend,  and  bumped  him  off  his 
land.  He  also  drifted  down  to  South  Africa  and 
became  a  friend  of  the  Kafir  and  put  him  to 
work — for  the  white  man. 

And  in  the  last  thirty  years  China  has  loomed 
up  as  a  pretty  good  thing.  The  white  man  as- 
sured the  Chinaman  that  he  was  the  China- 
man's friend,  and  began  grabbing  his  best 
harbours. 

Then  Japan  stepped  in  with  a  smile — and  a 
sword — and  said  she  was  a  friend  of  the  white 
man — but — and  the  white  man  has  been  squirm- 
ing ever  since.  The  white  man  doesn't  like 
,that  "but"  when  the  Japanese  use  it.  It  has  the 
look  of  a  dangerous  reservation  about  it.  It 

20 


A  QUALIFIED  RACIAL  FRIENDSHIP 

doesn't  sound  precisely  sincere,  and  it  is 
impudent. 

For  the  Japanese  is  the  first  Oriental  people 
since  Tamerlane  to  put  a  "but"  into  its  protesta- 
tion of  friendship  for  the  white  man. 

While  the  white  men  have  been  fighting 
among  themselves,  Japan  has  been  trying  busily 
to  hog-tie  China  for  private  use,  China,  the  big- 
gest undeveloped  market  on  earth. 

Will  Japan  get  away  with  it  ?  I  do  not  think 
so.  But  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  she  has 
been  at  the  job  in  a  workman-like  way.  She  is 
being  a  friend  to  everybody,  but — 

Now,  it  is  a  pretty  extreme  thing  to  say,  but 
I  do  not  believe  that  Japan  understands  one 
thing — that  the  white  man  will  either  survive 
or  perish — that  is,  he  will  either  dominate  or 
die.  With  this  view  in  mind  I  have  been  study- 
ing the  Japanese  here  in  Japan  with  a  great 
deal  of  interest.  A  bright,  intelligent,  capable 
people  they  are,  and  since  their  truly  wonderful 
successes  in  arts,  industries  and  arms,  a  very 
proud  people.  And  as  this  pride  grows — and  it 
will — it  will  lead  them  to  the  precipice.  Pride 
is  the  most  dangerous  quality  on  earth  in  a  man 
or  in  a  nation.  There  is  always  a  trap-door  in 
its  path.  I  don't  think  the  Japanese  know  this, 
certainly  not  as  surely  as  the  white  man  does, 

21 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

and  the  white  man  is  constantly  forgetting  it, 
and  if  I  were  a  Japanese  I  think  I  would  sally 
forth  and  preach  the  doctrine  of  an  humble  and 
contrite  heart,  for  the  good  of  the  nation. 

For  pride  will  lead  Japan  into  the  expansion 
which  is  the  mild  word  for  aggression.  It  has 
already  begun  with  the  Chinese  policy.  By 
playing  one  white  nation  off  against  the  other 
Japan  will  undoubtedly  make  great  headway, 
and  will  convince  herself  that  success  has  been 
attained  and  will  rise  to  new  heights  of  pride. 
And  the  day  will  come,  as  in  this  game  it  always 
comes,  when  Japan  will  seek  openly  to  compel 
the  west's  friendship,  as  she  compelled  Russia's 
friendship,  and  with  that  day  will  come  Japan's 
hour  of  humiliation  at  the  hands  of  the  white 
man,  who  will  either  dominate  or  die. 

From  what  I  can  pick  up,  the  United  States 
could  build  up  a  lasting  alliance  with  this  nation 
— but  only  by  a  whole-hearted  spirit  of  genuine 
amity.  It  will  have  to  be  without  guile.  It  can 
not  have  reservation.  And  it  will  have  to  show 
stronger  foundations  than  fair  words.  The  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  will  have  to  recognize 
that  Japan  has  her  problems — among  them  over- 
population— that  she  is  legitimately  moved  by 
proper  ambitions,  and  that  she  has  her  place  in 
the  development  of  the  east  (China  in  particu- 


A  QUALIFIED  RACIAL  FRIENDSHIP 

lar),  which  must  be  respected.  At  the  same 
time  Japan  should  be,  in  her  attitude  to  Amer- 
ica, eager  to  help  the  American  in  the  Chinese 
market,  anxious  for  co-operation  and  to  give  up 
once  and  for  all  the  idea  that  America  can  be 
frightened  permanently  into  a  timid,  acquiescent 
foreign  policy.  She  ought  to  call  her  spies  in 
America  home  and  keep  them  home. 

I  don't  say  that  there  will  be  any  such  perma- 
nent, genuine  fix-up  between  the  two  nations. 
I  think  there  could  be. 

Probably  the  statesmen  of  Japan  want  it  so. 
I  do  not  know,  of  course.  But  the  people  of 
Japan,  once  our  unselfish  friends,  are  drifting 
away  from  us.  A  Japanese  told  me  recently 
how  the  sentiment  was  agitated.  He  said  he 
had  heard  a  Japanese  orator  tell  a  crowd  this : 

He  was  on  the  back  seat  of  an  automobile  in 
San  Francisco  and  his  hat  blew  off.  An  Amer- 
ican citizen,  well-dressed  and  apparently  well-to- 
do,  picked  it  up  and  started  to  hand  it  to  him, 
and  then  seeing  he  was  a  Japanese,  threw  the 
hat  on  the  ground. 

Maybe,  my  informant  told  me,  that  Japanese 
crowd  didn't  howl. 

There  is  a  better  way  than  this — both  for 
America  and  Japan. 


23 


Ill 

A  FILM  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  JAPAN 

IT  is  easy  moving  around  in  Japan.  In  the 
first  place,  the  Japanese  put  directions  in 
English  on  sign  posts.  That  helps.  At 
many  of  the  stations  there  are  big  sign  boards 
bearing  reading  matter  under  the  heading: 
"Places  of  interest."  I  think  it  is  a  great  idea. 
The  town  tells  what  it  has  that  the  traveler 
should  see.  It  is  a  Japanese  scheme,  and  worthy 
of  imitation  everywhere.  People  have  said  that 
the  Japanese  lack  invention.  I  don't  think  so. 
For  instance,  I  found  that  if  you  want  to  go  out 
on  the  railroad  platform  to  see  a  friend  off,  you 
can  buy  a  platform  ticket  for  a  cent  and  do  it.  I 
would  like  to  know  if  American  station  agents 
have  any  kick  on  that,  and  I  am  sure  the  union 
depot  companies  would  like  the  revenue. 

I  have  tried  everything  here  in  the  way  of 
conveyances  except  automobiles,  and  the  streets 
are  so  crowded  with  children  that  I  refused  to 
put  my  nerves  on  the  rack.  First  I  tried  a  rick- 

24 


A  FILM  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  JAPAN 

shaw.  As  you  know,  a  rickshaw  is  an  over- 
grown baby  buggy,  mounted  on  two  wheels,  with 
a  man  between  the  shafts.  He  runs.  He  always 
runs,  and  in  this  country  he  throws  his  legs 
away  out  behind — so  far  out  behind  that  at  first 
I  expected  my  man  to  fall  over  on  his  face.  If  a 
rickshaw  man  didn't  run,  he  would  cause  excite- 
ment. In  fact,  I  had  just  that  experience.  I 
wanted  to  shop  a  bit  in  Tokyo,  and  I  wanted  to 
walk.  My  small  daughter,  aged  ten,  had  gotten 
the  rickshaw  habit  bad  and  she  rode.  But  I 
told  the  rickshaw  man  to  walk  alongside.  It 
liked  to  have  caused  a  riot  among  the  other  rick- 
shaw men.  They  were  convulsed  at  our  man 
walking.  They  kicked  up  their  heels,  fell  into 
one  another's  arms  in  sheer  joy  and  hid  their 
smiles  behind  their  hands.  Our  man  was  a 
proud  fellow,  and  sensible,  too,  and  he  kept  his 
head  up  in  the  air  and  never  let  on  that  he  knew 
they  were  guying  him,  but  once  he  turned  to  me 
and  gave  me  a  smile  which  was  the  Japanese 
equivalent  for  a  wink. 

When  we  reached  the  store  we  tried  to  get  in, 
but  were  halted,  and  after  a  little  I  made  out 
what  the  trouble  was.  The  porters  at  the  front 
door  were  checking  shoes,  and  then  I  discovered 
that  we  couldn't  get  in  unless  we  took  off  our 
shoes.  Mine  were  high  laced  boots,  and  I  was 

25 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

about  to  turn  back  when  I  found  that  there  was 
a  compromise  scheme — a  porter  would  put  velvet 
overshoes  on  your  feet  without  the  necessity  of 
removing  the  regular  ones.  So  I  stuck  out  my 
feet  and  he  outfitted  me  with  a  pair  of  goloshes, 
half  green  and  half  yellow,  and  we  sallied  into 
the  store.  It  was  carpeted  in  spotless  matting, 
and  was  the  finest  store  I  have  ever  visited. 
There  is  nothing  in  Paris  to  compare  with  it. 
People  didn't  seem  to  be  buying.  They  were  just 
wandering  around  and  looking,  and  listening  to 
an  orchestra  made  up  of  a  piano  and  violins. 
Now  the  piano  was  a  normal  one,  and  so  were 
the  violins,  and  so  was  the  music — they  were 
playing  "A  Perfect  Day,"  but  the  way  they  had 
those  musicians  togged  out  was  a  caution.  They 
wore  red  coats,  loaded  down  with  gold  braid, 
and  their  hats  were  military  helmets  with  white 
plumes  sticking  up  in  the  air  like  tassels  of  milo 
maize.  I  couldn't  hear  the  music  for  looking  at 
those  tassels. 

We  made  our  purchases  and  went  back  along 
the  streets.  The  impression  you  get  every- 
where is  that  Japan  is  just  peeking  out  of  the 
Oriental  shell  into  the  western  world.  You  win 
pass  a  Japanese,  dressed  in  the  height  of  west- 
ern fashion;  then  another  with  a  robe  and  a 
lady's  fan;  and  then  another  with  nothing  but 

26 


A  FILM  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  JAPAN 

a  breech-clout  and  a  hat  on,  and  we  passed  one 
fellow  who  didn't  have  any  breeches  on,  but  was 
wearing  a  derby  and  twirling  a  cane. 

Right  beside  this  magnificent  store,  which  I 
have  not  in  the  least  exaggerated,  stood  a  shop 
which  sold  dried  fish — so  dry  they  looked  like 
shingles — and  canned  goods.  The  ceiling  was 
so  low  that  no  one  could  get  in  without  stoop- 
ing, and  the  merchant  was  sitting  on  the  floor 
with  his  family  around  him  and  one  little  kiddy 
stuck  up  on  the  shelf  among  the  cans. 

You  will  find  a  native  newspaper  office  and  peer 
through  into  the  press  room  and  see  and  hear  a 
big  press  buzzing  exactly  as  the  perfecting  press, 
upon  which  an  American  newspaper  is  printed, 
buzzes.  Then  next  door  will  come  a  row  of  lat- 
tice windows  out  of  which  will  float  the  strum 
of  an  instrument,  the  like  of  which  you  never 
heard  before,  and  the  strains  of  a  weird  song 
that  might  have  been  sung  when  they  were 
building  the  pyramids  in  Egypt,  it  is  so  utterly 
different  from  anything  that  ever  drifted  to 
your  ears  before. 

That  is,  a  Japanese  city  is  a  moving  film  of 
new  and  old,  of  ancient  and  modern,  a  mixture 
of  the  first  century  and  the  twentieth,  a  hash  of 
Rudyard  Kipling  and  Marco  Polo,  and  just  walk- 
ing about  you  get  decidedly  woozy  in  your 

27 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

think-machine.  Things  don't  connect.  They 
don't  parse  and  you  finally  get  to  doubting 
whether  two  and  two  in  this  country  actually 
make  four. 

Of  course,  you  think  I  am  overstating  the 
case.  But  I  am  not,  and  you  will  know  I  am  not 
when  I  tell  you  that  in  my  rambles  I  paused  out- 
side a  movie  theatre  to  hear  the  "Sextette  from 
Lucia"  on  a  Victrola  for  five  minutes  and  spent 
the  next  five  minutes  standing  before  a  gold  god 
with  about  a  hundred  dirty  cotton  bibs  tied 
under  his  chin,  while  a  priest  knelt  down  in 
front  of  him  beating  a  gourd  with  a  long  drum- 
stick and  mumbling,  like  a  bumble-bee,  to  him- 
self a  wail  that  was  covered  with  moss  centuries 
before  Moses  led  the  Israelites  out  of  Egypt. 


IV 
CHINA'S  JOSS  WORSHIP 

ONE   comes   to  China   through   Japan  as 
through  a  vestibule.     I  am  told  that  I 
will  change  my  mind  about  the  vestibule 
when  I  have  seen  the  house.     Perhaps.     But 
here  is  China.    There  was  a  big  Chinese  holiday 
in  progress  when  I  arrived  in  Shanghai,  and  I 
spent  some  time  in  a  joss-house  and  saw  many 
curious  things.    But  before  I  recount  what  I 
saw   I   will   have  to   make   a   little   excursion 
with  your  mind. 

If  you  will  go  to  any  public  school  this  after- 
noon about  four  o'clock  and  follow  a  crowd  of 
small  boys  away  and  watch  them  at  their  play, 
you  will  witness  some  things  that  you  can  not 
explain.  A  good  healthy  boy  of  ten  will  take 
an  ordinary  broomstick,  straddle  it,  and  after 
riding  it  around  for  a  few  minutes,  will  turn  it 
into  a  better  horse  than  Jehu  ever  drove.  In 
the  same  way  if  you  will  slip  up  on  your  small 
daughter  this  afternoon  you  will  probably  find 

29 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

her  playing  with  a  pillow  which  she  ha&  turned, 
by  the  same  magic,  into  a  baby,  to  which  she 
will  be  talking  a  world  of  maternal  nonsense. 

That  is,  your  own  boy  and  girl  have  some- 
thing you  haven't.  It  is  imagination — but 
imagination  plus  something  else — that  some- 
thing else  is  childhood.  Now  I  have  been  rum- 
maging around  to  find  a  common  denominator 
for  China  and  America,  and  this  is  the  only  one 
I  can  find — childhood.  China  is  in  her  child- 
hood— whether  the  first  or  second  childhood  I 
am  unable  to  say  at  this  moment.  I  suspect  the 
second. 

Shanghai  is  bifurcated — the  white  folks  have 
one  city  and  the  Chinese  the  other.  I  made  for 
the  Chinese  city.  First  I  tried  to  strike  a  bar- 
gain with  my  rickshaw  man,  but  I  couldn't  do  it. 

"What  will  you  take  me  to  the  Chinese  city 
for?"  I  asked. 

"You  say,"  he  said. 

"But  I  won't,"  I  said.  "How  much  do  you 
want?" 

"You  say,"  he  reiterated. 

So  I  crawled  into  the  rickshaw  and  set  forth 
and  finally  arrived  near  the  temple.  Then  T 
went  through  the  whole  thing  over  again.  I 
wanted  to  know  how  much  I  was  to  be  stung, 
and  all  he  would  answer  was  "You  say." 

30 


A  FILM  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  JAPAN 

So  I  told  him  to  wait,  and  made  my  way  into 
the  temple  through  a  crowd  that  was  truly 
motley  and  the  noisiest  bunch  I  have  ever  met 
— bar  nothing,  even  a  bulletin  board  crowd  city 
election  night  at  home.  A  Chinese  loves  noise 
with  an  exceeding  great  love.  He  will  be  walk- 
ing along  the  street  alone  and  will  suddenly 
break  into  oratory.  In  a  trade,  the  clerks,  who 
sit  at  the  only  counter  (it  is  cross-way  of  the 
store  and  at  the  front),  all  snort  at  once  and 
the  customer  goes  back  at  them  like  the  boy 
who  is  "it"  in  the  game  of  "old  sow."  On  the 
street  corner  a  man  in  rags  was  playing  a  gourd 
with  a  single  gut  string  and  while  he  had  a  big 
audience  of  ragamuffins,  they  were  doing  so 
much  talking  that  he  wasn't  making  himself 
heard.  Along  came  a  row  of  rickshaws  with 
every  man  whooping  at  the  pedestrians  and 
back  of  them  a  carriage,  the  driver  of  which 
was  waving  a  whip  with  a  feather-duster  for  a 
cracker  (all  whips  are  so  equipped  here)  and 
whooping,  and  through  it  all  slowly  and  majes- 
tically moved  a  procession.  In  front  of  this 
cavalcade  were  three  men  with  gongs,  which 
they  beat  spasmodically,  back  of  them  was  a 
group  of  men  carrying  big  paper  lanterns,  back 
of  them  a  seven-piece  brass  band,  back  of  that 
a  carriage,  closed,  not  with  curtains,  but  with 

31 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA-^TAPAN 

shutters,  and  back  of  it  more  lanterns,  and  then 
an  open  carriage  with  two  pretty  Chinese  young 
women.  It  was  an  even  bet  whether  it  was  a 
wedding  or  a  funeral.  The  closed  carriage  held 
either  a  corpse  or  a  groom.  There  was  no  way 
I  could  tell  which — and  just  then  there  was  a 
riot.  In  the  upper  room  of  a  two-story  house, 
somebody  hit  another  gong,  there  was  a  deafen- 
ing outbreak  of  voices,  and  then  a  succession  of 
sounds  as  of  breaking  crockery — like  a  man 
would  make  hunting  a  rat  in  a  china  store  with 
a  scythe.  Now  I  was  the  only  man  on  the  scene 
who  was  doing  any  listening.  Everybody  else 
was  making  noise.  I  got  into  a  big  tea-garden, 
which  was  deserted  by  the  way,  and  finally 
came  up  to  a  big  benevolent  bearded  old  man 
who  quickly  shut  two  big  black  doors  back  of 
him.  I  knew  he  shut  them  on  purpose,  so  I  said : 

"How  much?" 

"You  say,"  he  said,  or  anyway  I  thought  he 
said  it.  So  I  fished  out  a  coin  (value,  a  nickel), 
he  bowed,  opened  the  doors  and  let  me  in. 

The  chamber  was  crowded  with  human  beings 
worshipping ;  in  front  of  them  were  two  rows  of 
"soldier  josses."  There  were  seven  josses  in 
each  row.  They  were  made  of  pine,  with  faces 
fairly  sculptured,  the  tops  of  their  heads  painted 
black  to  represent  hats,  their  skirts  painted  red. 

32 


A  FILM  OF  NEW  AND  OLD  JAPAN 

It  was  a  poor  job  of  painting,  for  they  were 
terribly  blistered  and  all  smoked  up.  Each 
wore  a  club-like  beard,  such  as  you  see  in  Egyp- 
tian sculpture.  In  front  of  each  row  was  a 
trough  in  which  little  pieces  of  silvered  paper 
were  being  burned  and  also  in  front  of  some  of 
the  favorites  a  few  odd-looking  candles.  There 
was  at  once  a  great  clamour  that  I  buy  some  of 
those  little  pieces  of  paper  and  burn  them.  I 
bought  a  handful  for  a  penny  and  picked  out  my 
joss.  I  wanted  to  get  a  real  good  looking  god, 
but  when  I  glanced  them  over,  they  all  looked 
alike — finally  I  picked  out  one  whose  left  eye  had 
scaled  off  and  burned  my  offering  before  him. 

You  would  naturally  suppose  that  this  action 
of  a  foreigner  would  cause  some  surprise.  It 
did  not.  I  suppose  that  my  action  was  as  inex- 
plicable to  those  Chinese  as  their  worship  was 
to  me. 

Your  first  thought  is  this:  How  can  any 
mature  human  being,  even  if  he  is  heathen, 
believe  in  a  block  of  wood?  These  people  are 
good  tradesmen,  they  are  bully  seamen,  within 
their  lights  they  are  virtuous,  in  commerce 
they  are  honest,  they  are  faithful  to  a  trust,  and 
in  certain  conditions  courageous.  They  have 
wills,  consciences  and  souls.  Then  why  don't 
they  know  that  these  fourteen  old  blocks  of 

33 


THE  VESTIBULE  TO  CHINA— JAPAN 

wood  were  fashioned  by  human  hands,  and  are 
blocks  of  wood  just  as  much  as  they  were  when 
they  grew  in  the  forest?  Why  doesn't  it  occur 
to  them  that  intercession  for  help  to  one  of 
these  effigies  is  as  useless  as  picking  out  a  tree 
anywhere  and  crying  to  it  for  help?  On  my 
way  back  out  of  the  Chinese  city  I  fumbled 
around  a  long  time  to  get  the  answer,  and  the 
one  thing  I  struck  upon  that  was  at  all  satisfac- 
tory was  that  idea  of  childhood  which  turns  a 
broomstick  into  a  horse.  And  then  I  had  an- 
other idea — how  modern  civilization  turns  gold 
and  power  and  place  into  idols  and  gets  down  on 
its  marrow  bones  before  them — and  I  quit. 


34 


V 


HANKOW  is  up  in  the  interior  of  China. 
It   is  on  the  way  to  Chung-King.      I 
am   bound   for   Chung-King,   which   is 
about  eighteen  hundred  miles  from  the  coast. 

Now,  the  only  way  to  get  to  Chung-King  is 
to  keep  going.  Our  instructions  before  starting 
were:  "Listen  to  no  one.  Keep  on  coming." 
That  takes  nerve.  When  we  were  nearing 
Shanghai  the  captain  of  the  trans-Pacific  ship 
called  me  to  him  and  said :  "I  have  bad  news  for 
you;  the  pilot  says  that  you  can't  reach  Chung- 
King  ;  the  boats  on  the  upper  river  have  all  been 
commandeered  by  the  Chinese  government  to 
move  troops,  on  account  of  the  rebellion.  You 
might  take  a  junk,  but  I  want  to  tell  you  it  is 
dangerous." 

When  we  reached  Shanghai  and  notified  the 
steamboat  offices  that  we  were  traveling  to 
Chung-King,  the  men  there  threw  up  their 
hands  and  said :  "You  can't  make  it,  and  even  if 

35 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

you  did  you  can't  get  back  until  next  spring." 

But  we  put  up  our  banner  emblazoned :  "Keep 
on  coming,"  and  said  we  were  going  anyway. 
And  we  suspected  that  at  Shanghai  they  don't 
know  as  much  about  Chung-King  as  a  cat  knows 
about  astronomy.  And  they  don't.  They  know 
about  Hankow,  and  at  Hankow  they  know  about 
Ichang,  which  is  six  hundred  miles  farther  up 
the  river,  and  at  Ichang  they  know  about 
Chung-King.  In  another  week  we  would  be  at 
Ichang,  and  then  we  would  begin  to  find  out 
about  transportation  to  Chung-King.  But  you 
can't  find  out  about  it  at  Hankow.  You  simply 
have  to  wait  till  you  come  to  the  end  of  one 
journey  before  you  find  out  what  is  at  the  other 
end.  A  line  of  boats  runs  from  Shanghai  to 
Hankow.  Another  line  runs  from  Hankow  to 
Ichang,  and  then  a  boat  is  rumored  to  run  from 
Ichang  to  Chung-King.  If  the  rumor  is  correct, 
you  can  make  the  journey  from  Shanghai  to 
Chung-King  in  a  little  less  than  three  weeks. 

Meanwhile  between  Hankow  and  Shanghai  I 
saw  what  is  to  my  mind  the  most  beautiful  agri- 
cultural country  in  the  world.  We  were  the 
only  white  passengers  on  board,  so  there  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  sit  and  look  at  the  shore 
as  we  glided  past. 

When  I  studied  geography,  we  knew  a  little 
36 


CRUDE  FARMING,  FANCIFUL  LEGENDS 

line  that  wiggled  straight  westward  through 
China  as  the  "Yangtse-Kiang."  Over  here  they 
drop  the  "Kiang"  and  call  it  "Yangtse."  It  runs 
westward  through  China  up  to  the  Himalayas 
(accent  over  here  on  "mal").  It  divides  the 
country  into  North  and  South  China.  What- 
ever foreign  nation  ever  seizes  it  will  control 
China.  Up  to  Hankow  it  runs  through  a  yellow 
alluvial  soil.  Its  water  is  tawny — much  more  so 
than  the  Missouri.  It  is  more  nearly  straight 
than  the  Mississippi — its  current  is  about  four 
miles  an  hour,  and  it  is  over  a  mile  wide  at  Han- 
kow— and  this  is  800  miles  from  its  mouth.  It 
seems  to  be  free  from  the  eddies  and  boilings 
which  one  sees  in  the  Arkansas  river.  Its  chan- 
nel runs  about  fifteen  fathoms.  On  its  lower 
reaches  it  is  fed  by  thousands  of  creeks,  upon 
which  ply  thousands  of  native  boats,  so  that, 
looking  from  the  river,  the  fields  all  about  you 
seem  to  be  growing  sails  and  masts.  Near  the 
sea  there  are  no  levees,  and  the  country,  being 
subject  to  inundations,  is  not  put  to  much  use. 
But  on  the  second  and  third  days'  journey  up, 
the  banks  become  a  little  higher,  and  the  second 
bottoms  are  well  up  out  of  the  reach  of  floods. 
Nearby  all  along  the  bottoms  are  low  hills,  and 
ten  or  twenty  miles  back  from  the  river  beauti- 
ful mountains.  I  should  say  that  anything  that 

37 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

will  grow  in  the  temperate  zone  will  grow  along 
this  river.  I  don't  believe  there  can  be  a  more 
fertile  soil  on  the  earth.  The  farmers  of  the 
Mississippi  valley  could  make  it  a  Garden  of 
Eden.  The  Chinese  have  not.  Much  of  it  ap- 
pears as  waste,  or  devoted  to  such  volunteer 
crops  as  rushes.  I  saw  no  clovers.  The  only 
cattle  visible  were  a  few  water-buffalo.  In  eight 
hundred  miles  I  saw  but  two  horses.  There  was 
not  as  much  rice  as  one  would  expect.  I  saw 
many  fields  of  Indian  maize,  but  the  Chinaman 
has  let  the  grain  deteriorate,  and  the  ears  I  saw 
were  not  much  bigger  than  our  pop-corn.  All 
sorts  of  garden  truck  is  first-class,  although  the 
Irish  potato  is  undersized — which,  again,  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  soil  Peanuts,  which  are  raised 
in  abundance,  are  also  undersized.  By  the  way, 
these  are  harvested  by  running  the  whole  top 
soil  through  sieves.  All  that  doesn't  go  through 
are  peanuts  and  stones.  I  saw  no  farm  machin- 
ery of  any  kind.  Everything,  of  course,  is  done 
by  the  crudest  of  hand  labour.  The  tree  growth, 
which  in  appearance  is  much  like  that  along  the 
small  streams  in  America,  is  abundant. 

We  passed  many  Chinese  cities  on  the  way  up 
to  Hankow.  They  all  look  pretty  much  alike. 
The  first  thing  in  view  is  the  pagoda,  usually 
located  on  top  of  a  hill  and  usually  with  a 

38 


CRUDE  FARMING,  FANCIFUL  LEGENDS 

bunch  of  weeds  or  a  bush  growing  out  of  the 
crumbling  roof.  Beneath  it  one  will  see  an 
ancient  wall — as  thin  as  a  strawberry  box — and 
inside  a  two-story  house — the  home  of  the 
priest.  Over  on  another  hill  will  be  a  preten- 
tious American-looking  structure — the  school  or 
the  hospital  of  the  missionaries.  The  mass  of 
the  city  is  made  up  of  one-story,  low-ceilinged 
houses  without  eaves.  The  streets,  of  course, 
are  narrow,  roughly  paved  and  crooked. 

There  is  no  more  majestic  river  under  the  sun 
than  this  Yangtse.  But  China  hasn't  done  much 
for  it.  While  it  is  a  little  early  for  me  to  pass 
judgment  on  the  Chinese,  I  can't  help  but  think 
that  it  is  time  that  more  contact  with  steam, 
electricity  and  the  hundred  other  agencies  of 
civilization  should  be  taking  hold.  Perhaps 
John  D.  Rockefeller  will  lead  the  way.  He  is 
selling  them  kerosene,  and  it  may  bring  them 
around  gently  to  our  ways.  For  at  all  the  larger 
points  along  the  river  you  will  see  a  group  of 
familiar  tanks,  enclosed  in  a  neat  fence  and  a 
sign  above  bearing  two  Chinese  characters 
which  look  like  the  model  of  a  patent  gate. 
Translated,  this  means  "The  Beautiful  Oil  Com- 
pany," there  being  no  Chinese  word  for  Stand- 
ard. The  Standard  Oil  establishments  are  by 
far  the  niftiest  things  one  sees  in  the  Orient — 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

they  spell  order,  cleanliness  and — light. 

And  China  needs  light.  She  is  living  in 
legends.  Legends  are  all  right,  but  no  people 
has  a  right  to  believe  them. 

We  passed  on  the  river  the  city  of  Tai-Ping- 
Fu  with  its  three-story  pagoda.  A  little  way  up 
the  river  is  an  island  with  two  stories  of  a 
pagoda  on  it.  The  tale  runs  that  the  devil  came 
along  one  night  and  stole  these  two  bottom 
stories  from  under  the  Tai-Ping-Fu  pagoda  and 
made  off  with  them.  Dawn,  however,  overtook 
him,  and  the  devil,  not  being  able  to  stand 
light,  let  the  two  stories  drop.  Farther  up  the 
river  we  passed  Ngan-King  with  a  fine  seven- 
story  pagoda,  and  stuck  in  the  ground  at  its 
base  were  two  big  anchors  to  which  the  tower 
is  chained.  A  thousand  years  ago  or  so  the 
Ngan-King  crowd  heard  about  the  devil's 
monkeyshines  down  at  Tai-Ping-Fu,  so  they  de- 
cided to  take  no  chances  and  added  the  anchors. 

That  was  all  right — a  thousand  years  ago — 
and  it  is  a  bully  legend,  as  legends  go,  but  no- 
body has  a  right  to  believe  in  these  anchors 
to-day.  And  somehow  I  can't  help  but  believe 
that  if  these  folks  get  enough  kerosene  mixed 
up  in  their  daily  economics — they  will  light  up 
the  pagoda  at  night,  scare  the  devil  away,  and 
surrender  their  faith  in  those  anchors. 

40 


VI 
ABSORPTION  A  CHINESE  SPECIALTY 

WHILE  you  will  gather  from  the  news- 
papers and  the  magazines  from  time  to 
time  that  there  is  great  official  fear  in 
China  over  the  designs  of  Japan  upon  the  integ- 
rity of  China,  and  it  is  true,  there  is  a  consid- 
erable party  or  school  among  the  Chinese  who 
favor   letting   the   Japanese   come   in   and   do 
their  worst. 

The  position  of  this  school  is  as  follows :  "Let 
the  Japanese  take  China  if  they  want  to.  They 
will  help  us,  and  in  the  end  we  will  take  the 
Japanese,  as  we  have  taken  everybody  else,  and 
as  we  will  always  take  everybody." 

That  is,  the  Chinese  believe  that  they  will 
simply  absorb  anybody  who  comes  in  contact 
with  them,  as  indeed  they  have  absorbed  their 
successive  conquerors — the  Mongolians  and  the 
Manchus. 

Their  attitude  we  are  apt  to  ascribe  to  a 
gigantic  apathy,  a  national  docility,  when,  in 

41 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

truth,  it  is  national  persistence  and  tenacity. 
The  trait,  as  I  found  it  here,  was  not  precisely 
new  to  me.  Sometimes  one  may  see  a  whole 
nation  through  one  man.  In  my  boyhood  I  lived 
in  a  frontier  town.  Charley  Sing  came  to  dwell 
among  us.  Instead  of  renting  a  twenty-five-foot 
building,  he  got  himself  a  shanty  between  two 
normal  store  rooms.  Charley  Sing's  laundry 
was  about  four  feet  wide.  Its  front  was  painted 
a  porcelain  blue.  Inside  he  had  the  picture  of  a 
joss,  and  before  it  he  burned  sticks  of  incense. 
He  prospered  mightily  in  the  old  days,  before 
the  steam  laundries,  and  finally  went  back  to 
China,  trading  his  laundry  and  his  name  with  it 
to  a  new  Chinese.  I  knew  the  original  Charley 
Sing  well.  He  gave  me  little  presents,  and  the 
first  preserved  ginger  I  ever  tasted  was  at  his 
hands.  Now  the  thing  I  noticed  most  about 
Charley  Sing,  when  I  was  a  boy,  was  the  fact 
that  we  didn't  change  him.  He  got  so  he  spoke 
pretty  good  English,  and  he  wore  our  clothes, 
but  he  kept  his  pig-tail,  gave  out  Chinese  script 
for  checks  and  receipts,  sprinkled  the  clothes  by 
squirting  water  between  his  teeth  and  observed 
Chinese  New  Years  in  February  with  as  much 
ceremony  as  though  it  were  a  national  American 
holiday.  He  remained  Chinese,  and,  similarly, 
China  will  remain  China. 

42 


ABSORPTION  A  CHINESE  SPECIALTY 

There  is  a  lot  of  plain,  unadorned  pig-head- 
edness  about  it.  Every  nation  in  the  world  in 
the  last  thirty  years  has  used  China  as  a  door- 
mat. They  have  seized  her  ports,  grabbed  her 
land,  battered  her  capital,  looted  her  palaces,  but 
many  of  the  Chinese  officials  still  imagine  that 
all  nations  in  the  world  are  subject  to  China. 
In  the  same  way,  the  Chinese  themselves  defend 
their  customs  when  reason  is  clearly  against 
them,  as,  in  their  topsy-turvy  way  of^doing 
things,  it  frequently  is.  There  is  no  argument 
against  them  if  they  want  to  use  white  instead 
of  black  for  mourning; or  if  they  like  eating  their 
pie  before  their  meat ;  or  if  they  persist  in  put- 
ting the  caboose  at  the  head  of  the  freight  train 
and  the  engine  at  the  rear,  or  doing  any  of  the 
thousand  upside  down  things  they  do  which  are 
mere  matters  of  taste.  But  when  they  bump 
into  scientific  principles,  the  argument  is  against 
them.  They  eat  their  fruit  green,  for  instance, 
and  die  of  colic.  But  they  insist  that  the  white 
man  is  wrong;  that  when  fruit  is  ripe  it  is 
rotten.  But  the  white  man  eats  ripe  fruit  and 
escapes  stomach  troubles.  The  white  man  is 
right  in  this,  as  he  is  when  he  makes  the  sharp 
end  of  his  ship  the  front  end,  and  not  the  blunt 
end,  as  do  the  Chinese. 

However,  the  Chinese  maintain  that  they  are 
43 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

right  in  everything,  and  they  preserve  them- 
selves nationally  by  this  method.  This  idea  runs 
clear  through  the  people.  I  have  talked  with  a 
good  many  white  people  over  here,  and  about 
the  last  thing  any  one  of  them  would  under- 
take would  be  to  change  a  Chinaman.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  average  white  man  doesn't 
even  make  the  attempt.  If  he  is  to  have  deal- 
ings with  the  Chinese,  he  employs  a  middleman 
who  does  understand  them.  So  it  happens  that 
one  of  the  first  things  you  run  across  over  here 
are  the  expressions  "Comprador"  and  "Number 
One  Boy."  A  comprador  is  apparently  a 
Chinese  who  serves  as  a  general  go-between  for 
an  employer  and  other  Chinese.  A  "Number 
One  Boy"  is  the  boss  of  the  servants.  All 
Chinese  servants  are  called  "boys";  no  one  ever 
thinks  for  a  moment  of  learning  a  Chinese' 
name.  He  is  simply  "boy,"  although  he  may  be 
sixty  and  wear  whiskers.  And,  with  a  few  ex- 
ceptions, it  is  hopeless  to  try  to  get  anything 
through  the  noggin  of  one  of  these  "boys."  One 
must  call  the  "Number  One  Boy,"  prefer  the 
request  to  him,  and  he  will  pass  it  on.  Now, 
"preferring  the  request"  is  a  little  strong.  I 
have  not  yet  heard  any  one  prefer  a  request. 
If  you  are  eating  at  an  American  restaurant, 
you  will  probably  say  to  the  waitress,  "May  I 

14 


ABSORPTION  A  CHINESE  SPECIALTY 

have  the  sugar  ?"    Over  here  you  take  on  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte's  best  manner  at  Austerlitz  and 
say  in  tones  of  mighty  command,  "Sugar.    Go 
get."     This   dictatorial,   high-and-mighty  atti- 
tude over  here,  and  you  don't  want  to  forget 
that  in  a  way  it  is  pardonable,  is  universal.    I 
have  a  suspicion  that  if  a  man  spent  twenty-five 
years  in  China  and  then  returned  to  America,  he 
would  have  four  or  five  fist  fights  a  day  with 
servants.    All  his  "mays"  and  "if  you  pleases" 
and  "kindlys"  would  have  dropped  out  of  his 
vocabulary,  and  there  would  be  something  doing. 
Now,  all  this  bossy  language  and  manner  slips 
off  a  Chinese  as  water  glides  from  a  duck's  back. 
He  doesn't  seem  to  know  that  you  are  ordering 
him.    When  you  say:  "Sugar.    Go  get,"  and  he 
moves  forward  three  minutes  later  with  a  can 
of  pepper,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  gnash  your 
teeth  and  yell :  "No.    Pepper.    Sugar.    Go  get," 
and  to  keep  on  repeating  it  until  he  gets  the 
sugar.    Now,  this  would  indicate  great  docility 
on  the  part  of  the  Chinese.    But  it  is  probably 
not  that  at  all.    On  the  contrary,  his  secret 
thought  is  that  you  are  all  kinds  of  an  unmiti- 
gated idiot,  and  it  is  the  part  of  superior  wis- 
dom, on  his  part,  to  be  gentle  and  kindly  with 
you.    For,  make  no  mistake,  the  Chinese  knows 
his  rights  and  he  grabs  for  them  like  a  hungry 

45 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE  \ 

boy  after  pie  at  a  picnic.  If  he  is  "Number  One 
Boy,"  he  would  die  before  he  would  sweep  the 
floor.  He  orders  another  boy  to  do  that,  and  if 
you  order  "Number  One  Boy"  to  do  anything 
not  on  his  shift,  he  will  quit.  The  captain  on 
our  boat  from  Shanghai  to  Hankow  told  me  that 
just  before  he  started  on  his  last  trip  up  the 
river,  he  told  "Number  One  Boy"  to  wash  six 
teaspoons  which  the  children  had  used.  He  said 
it  wasn't  his  job,  that  he  wouldn't  do  it.  The 
captain,  who  is  a  double-fisted  sort  of  an  indi- 
vidual, took  the  Chinese  by  the  nape  of  the  neck 
and  led  him  up  to  the  spoons,  but  the  Chinese 
wriggled  loose  and  quit  the  job. 

On  the  way  up  the  river  I  watched  a  Chinese 
take  the  soundings  for  the  channel.  This  con- 
sists of  swinging  a  three-pound  lead  into  the  air 
and  dropping  it,  and  crying  out  the  depth  of  the 
channel  found.  It  is  a  light  task  at  best.  But  I 
noticed  that  this  Chinese  had  at  his  side  another 
Chinese  of  lower  caste  who  did  the  menial  work 
of  pulling  the  lead  up  out  of  the  water. 

The  white  man  undoubtedly  would  order  it 
otherwise  if  he  could.  But  the  white  -man  can't, 
and  long  residence  here  discourages  him  in  the 
effort.  For  attrition  against  the  Chinese  saps 
him,  takes  away  his  punch  and  puts  slack  in 
his  nervous  energy.  After  a  long  period  in 

46 


ABSORPTION  A  CHINESE  SPECIALTY 

China  all  white  people  grow  sallow,  and  dragged- 
down  and  infinitely  and  unspeakably  tired.  So 
the  Chinese  who  say  to  the  ambitious:  "Wel- 
come to  our  city,  oh,  ye  conquerors,"  may  not 
be  so  very  much  wrong.  For,  while  Phillip  would 
be  a  stranger  in  Athens,  and  Caesar  lonesome  in 
Rome  and  Harold  a  hopeless  alien  in  London,  and 
even  George  Washington  might  feel  himself  a 
good  deal  of  an  intruder  in  modern  America, 
Confucius  could  return  to  Shantung  today  and 
find  himself  completely  at  home.  His  kin,  if 
they  had  mixed  during  his  absence  wouldn't 
show  it. 


47 


yn 

RAIN  AND  REVOLUTION 

TO  those  of  you  who  are  inclined,  having 
read  what  I  have  here  presented,  to  dis- 
believe it,  I  would  like  to  say  that  I  have 
exercised  every  care  not  to  admit  anything  into 
the  narration  which  is  improbable.    And  I  hope 
that  it  will  be  accepted  because  it  gives  a  fair 
view,  from  one  angle,  of  a  political  situation  in 
China  which  is  always  threatening  an  explosion 
with  international  complications. 

Recently  a  tract  in  the  city  of  Hankow  a  half 
mile  square  was  burned,  bombed  and  looted. 
About  200  people  were  killed  and  burned.  In 
the  midst  of  this  conflagration  was  an  American 
lumber  yard,  occupying  something  like  an  acre. 
It  is,  in  appearance,  an  ordinary  lumber  yard. 
It  escaped  absolutely  unscathed. 

Anyone  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  under- 
stand this  fire  may  comprehend,  without 
trouble,  the  danger  of  the  explosion  aforesaid. 
For  some  time  there  has  been  a  political  society 

48 


TRANSPORTATION  IX  INTERIOR  CHINA 


THE  CARRIER  COOLIE 


RAIN  AND  REVOLUTION 

in  Hankow  known  as  the  Ming  party.  It  wanted 
office.  Its  leaders  landed.  The  following  didn't. 
The  bunch,  for  something  better  to  do,  grabbed 
the  son  of  a  rich  Peking  official  and  held  him 
for  $10,000  ransom.  Otherwise,  also,  they  got 
themselves  disliked. 

Finally  this  unhappy  band  hid  itself  away  in 
the  Japanese  concession.  Now,  a  word  about 
the  concessions.  For  a  mile  or  so  along  the 
river  at  Hankow  are  the  consular  offices  of  for- 
eign nations,  America  included.  But  America 
rents  her  building.  The  other  nations  own  their 
own  buildings  and  a  lot  of  ground  which,  in 
times  past,  they  politely  grabbed.  Japan  has 
two  concessions,  an  original  plot  and  an  exten- 
sion. These  various  concessions  are  not  only 
occupied  by  consular  buildings,  but  by  business 
blocks,  some  of  them  quite  large.  Each  con- 
cession has  its  own  police  force.  The  British 
have  a  volunteer  fire  company,  and  recently  the 
Japanese  garrisoned  a  troop  of  some  six  hun- 
dred regular  soldiers  on  their  ground.  Back  of 
these  concessions  is  the  Chinese  city,  part  of 
which  was  burned. 

It  should  be  understood  that  the  inhabitants 
of  these  concessions  underwent  quite  a  strain 
when  the  war  broke  out  in  Europe.  Germans, 
British,  French  and  Russians  meeting  daily  in 

49 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

those  times  would  naturally  prove  a  little  defi- 
cient in  furnishing  the  ingredients  for  a  first- 
class  cup  of  joy.  But  they  are  all  agreed  on 
one  proposition — and  that  is  the  condemnation 
of  the  Japanese.  There  may  be  several  white 
men  in  China  who  regard  the  Japanese  in  a 
kindly  light,  but  friendly  Japanese  sentiment 
doesn't  overwhelm  you. 

Those  who  do  not  fancy  the  Japanese  allege 
that  the  Japanese  harbored  the  Ming  party  and 
insidiously  stirred  them  up  to  riot  for  a  specific 
purpose.  At  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the 
riot  a  newspaper  reporter  attended  a  meeting  of 
the  Ming  party.  The  crowd  carried  bombs, 
lighted  torches  and  a  gun  for  every  six  men. 
There  were  from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred 
of  them. 

Shortly  after  nine  o'clock  the  Mings  set  fire 
to  the  town  back  of  the  concessions  and  nearest 
the  Japanese  section.  As  the  sparks  flew  and 
the  bombs  exploded  the  mob  grew.  The  rioters 
attacked  the  Chinese  police  station  and  captured 
it.  Most  of  the  policemen  got  out  of  their  uni- 
forms and  hid  out.  The  Chinese  chief  of  police 
escaped  to  the  French  consulate.  The  beginning 
of  one  first-class  revolution  was  in  motion  when 
something  happened,  and  that  something  was 
decidedly  Chinese.  It  began  to  rain. 

50 


RAIN  AND  REVOLUTION 

Now,  to  Chinese,  rain  is  "bad  joss  pidgin"; 
that  is,  the  signs  were  not  right,  and  the  riot 
and  the  fire  ceased.  It  didn't  rain  much,  but  it 
halted  the  game  through  the  power  of  supersti- 
tion. Meanwhile  the  foreigners  were  calling  for 
the  Chinese  troops,  and  were  receiving  repeated 
assurances  that  troops  had  been  sent.  But  the 
troops  were  not  in  sight,  and  the  foreigners  pre- 
pared to  sell  their  lives  dearly,  if  it  quit  raining. 
And  it  did  quit.  Immediately  the  rict  and  fire 
resumed.  Looting  began.  Now,  the  fire  did  not 
begin  where  it  had  ended,  but  a  considerable 
distance  away  from  the  Japanese  concession. 
From  this  moment  onward,  from  what  I  gath- 
ered, the  Japanese  interest  in  it  waned.  If  the 
charges  made  against  the  Japanese  are  true, 
they  wanted  the  fire  near  them — a  fact  which 
conceals  a  plot  in  this  story.  The  rioters,  mov- 
ing away  from  the  Japanese  concession,  en- 
croached on  the  French  tract.  The  French 
authorities,  backed  with  a  squad,  issued  a  warn- 
ing which  the  rioters  disregarded.  The  order 
to  fire  was  given,  and  about  a  hundred  Chinese 
fell.  The  Chinese  troops  came  late,  being  very 
foxy,  as  will  later  appear.  At  one  time,  one  of 
the  foreign  concessions  asked  aid  of  the  Japan- 
ese, and  the  Japanese  sent  a  troop.  A  machine 
gun  detachment  was  landed  from  an  American 

51 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

gunboat.  The  thing  was  well  over  by  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  scene  was  one  of 
great  desolation  and  misery.  In  the  midst  of 
it,  immune,  stood  that  American  lumber  yard. 

What  was  it  all  about?  If  the  Japanese 
started  the  rioters,  why  did  they  get  them  to 
begin  near  the  Japanese  concession?  Why  did 
the  Chinese  troops  hold  back?  Why  should  a 
lumber  yard  go  through  a  conflagration  like  this 
untouched  ? 

Your  guess  may  be  all  right.  I  don't  know, 
and  I  will  not  be  able  to  say  for  certain.  The 
international  politics  of  the  Orient  doesn't  admit 
of  anything  but  guesses,  and  even  when  you 
guess,  you  are  not  given  the  answer.  You 
simply  grope  in  the  first  place,  and  in  the  second 
place  you  keep  on  groping. 

Let  us  take  a  common  guess  in  Hankow. 
Firing  on  a  foreign  concession  is  a  serious  busi- 
ness. Drop  a  shrapnel  shell  into  a  foreign  con- 
cession and  the  offended  nation  indignantly 
grabs  a  section  of  land  from  China  to  punish 
her,  and  calls  it  an  extension  of  the  original 
grant.  About  the  last  thing  a  Chinese  patriot 
would  think  of  doing  would  be  to  shoot  up  a 
foreigner's  property.  That  explains  the  mir- 
acle of  the  lumber  yard.  And  it  also  explains 
the  whispered  view  of  a  lot  of  people  in  Hankow 

52 


RAIN  AND  REVOLUTION 

that  the  riot  was  a  Japanese  scheme  to  get  the 
Chinese  troops  onto  the  scene  and  have  them 
wallop,  through  mistake,  a  few  shells  into  the 
Japanese  concession,  and  seize  some  more  land. 
It  will  also  explain  how  the  Chinese  generals, 
foreseeing  the  game,  refused  to  bring  their 
troops  up  until  the  riot  had  moved  away  from 
the  Japanese  section  of  the  town.  There  is  a 
missing  link  in  the  story:  If  the  Japanese  were 
manipulating  this  game,  why  did  they  let  the 
rioters  get  out  of  their  part  of  town?  The 
answer  is:  The  rain.  It  stopped  the  growth  of 
the  riot  at  the  beginning.  And  when  the  rain 
quit,  the  rioters  had  to  start  all  over  again,  and 
they  moved  into  fresh  and  unlooted  territory. 

If  the  guess  is  a  correct  one,  the  Japanese 
were  seeking  to  win  by  means  of  an  accident, 
and  they  lost  through  another  accident  instead. 
I  don't  say  this  is  true.  It  is  one  guess. 

Some  of  you  are  no  doubt  inclined  to  think 
this  story  is  involved.  You  are  right  about 
that.  It  is  involved.  And  so  is  the  game  the 
nations  are  playing  over  here.  I  should  say 
that  the  whole  thing  is  a  volcano  and  that  the 
lid  may  be  blown  off  with  a  bang  as  long  as 
the  international  rivalry  within  China  obtains. 
And  you  would  also  if  you  walked  into  a  place  of 
business  as  I  have,  and  saw  a  rack  of  rifles  stand- 

53 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

ing  near  the  front  door,  or  if  you  could  hear  the 
general  suppressed  roar  over  the  fact  that  the 
Japanese  have  recently  erected  a  wireless  appa- 
ratus on  their  concession  and  are  supposed  to  be 
grabbing  off  other  people's  messages.  For,  be 
it  known,  the  wireless  has  stretched  its  invisible 
fingers  thus  deep  in  the  interior  and  far  from 
serving  as  a  tie  to  bind  the  human  brotherhood 
together,  and  establish  amity,  bids  fair  to  break 
the  brotherhood  asunder  and  breed  discord. 


54 


VIII 
WRONGS  OF  CHINESE  WOMEN 

THERE  is  no  "woman  question"  in  China. 
There  ought  to  be.    And  I  wish  I  could 
live  long  enough  to  see  the  women  of  China 
rise,  demand  their  rights  and  take  payment  in 
full  for  centuries  of  cruelty.    The  thing  wouldn't 
look  square  without  that  payment  in  full.    If  the 
men  simply   said:    "All   right,   here   are  your 
rights,"  it  would  be  a  rank  cheat.    The  only 
thing  that  would  balance  the  books  would  be  a 
big,  bloody  revenge. 

It  is  pretty  hard  to  do  this  thing  justice.  Of 
course,  the  nice,  easy,  courteous  thing  to  do  is 
to  take  the  Oriental  view,  as  some  writers  of 
books  do,  and  show  that  the  system  makes  the 
Chinese  woman  a  very  happy,  contented  being. 
That  sort  of  talk  goes  down  with  the  kind  of 
politician  who  says  it  is  a  mistake  to  educate 
the  negro  because  it  will  make  him  unhappy. 
Of  course,  I  understand  that  the  view  I  take, 
grounded  in  Occidental  culture,  is  liable  to  get 

55 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

too  much  emphasis  on  certain  features  of 
woman's  condition  in  the  East,  and  yet  I  con- 
tend that  my  indignation  of  soul  is  justified. 

Now,  the  Occidental  mind,  when  it  comes  to 
dealing  with  the  relation  of  the  sexes  in  the 
East,  has  a  head-on  collision  with  facts,  before 
the  caboose  is  well  out  of  the  yards. 

For  instance,  when  President  Yuan  Shih  Kai 
died  President  Wilson  undoubtedly  telegraphed 
Madame  Yuan  Shi  Kai  the  condolences  of  Mrs, 
Wilson  and  himself.  Everybody  in  China 
laughed  and  asked:  "Which  Madame  Yuan  Shih 
Kai?"  There  were,  I  am  told,  eight  or  ten 
widows. 

I  am  not  going  to  deal  logically  with  the  con- 
dition of  women  in  China.  I  am  going  merely 
to  make  the  bald  statement  that  promiscuity  by 
a  man  or  a  woman  of  whatsoever  breed  is  not 
only  unmoral,  but  immoral,  and  then  spread  be- 
fore you  little  things  I  have  picked  up  over 
here.  Maybe  I  have  been  "stung"  on  some  of 
these  tales.  I  don't  know.  You  will  have  to 
exercise  your  own  judgment  about  that. 

Generally  speaking,  the  more  wives  a  Chinese 
has  the  greater  his  credit  at  bank.  Concubines 
cost  money.  The  cost  of  installation  is  heavy 
(a  concubine  of  the  first  class  goes  as  high  as 
$4,000  gold),  and  the  upkeep  is  considerable. 

56 


WRONGS  OF  CHINESE  WOMEN 

Weddings  are  expensively  elaborate.  Frequent 
marriage  makes  for  prestige.  The  first  wife, 
usually  betrothed  in  infancy,  is  the  boss  of  the 
other  wives,  and  she  is  legally  the  mother  of  all 
the  other  women's  children.  Sometimes  she  is  a 
paragon  as  such  and  sometimes  she  is  not.  A 
missionary  doctor  of  Kweichow  told  me  this 
story:  A  rich  Chinese  who  was  single-minded  in 
his  devotion  to  his  spouse,  was,  with  her,  greatly 
concerned  because  no  son  was  born.  They  talked 
it  over  and  determined  that  he  should  marry  a 
young  woman  they  knew.  He  did.  To  them  a 
son  was  born.  The  first  wife  took  over  the  care 
of  the  son  and  had  every  solicitude  that  the 
boy's  own  mother  could  possibly  feel  for  him. 

The  doctor  also  told  me  this  tale:  One  day 
while  he  was  administering  to  .a  convert,  the 
village  telegraph  operator,  who  spoke  a  pidgin 
English,  called  and  said:  "My  concubin-o  take 
sick.  Want  medicine."  The  convert  took  the 
operator  to  one  side  and  chided  him.  "You 
ought  to  be  ashamed,"  he  said,  "talking  to  a 
Christian  about  your  concubin-o."  Then  the 
operator  turned  to  the  doctor  and  said :  "Makee 
one  mistake.  Want  medicine  for  Number  Two 
wife." 

On  the  main  street  of  Hankow  it  was  pointed 
out  to  me  that  girls  with  banged  hair  were  un- 

57 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

married,  and  those  with  the  hair  of  the  forehead 
squared  pretty  well  back  on  the  scalp  were 
married.  This  front  hair  is  pulled  out  of  a 
bride's  head,  a  hair  at  a  time,  and  the  mother- 
in-law  does  the  job.  "What  is  the  idea?"I  asked 
my  informant,  a  woman. 

"It's  cruelty,  sheer  cruelty,"  she  replied; 
"cruelty  that  teaches  subjection.  The  bound 
foot  is  the  same  thing.  It  crushes  the  spirit  as 
well  as  the  feet.  Of  course,  one  of  the  reasons 
for  its  origin  was  to  keep  the  wife  from  being 
stolen,  for  they  kidnap  afoot  in  China,  but  the 
basis  of  the  custom  is  cruelty." 

Along  this  main  street  in  Hankow  I  saw  many 
girls  who  did  not  appear  to  be  over  nine  or  ten 
years  of  age  who  were  married  and  were  work- 
ing at  benches.  One  girl,  not  over  ten,  was 
sitting  by  the  side  of  her  husband,  a  merchant. 
He  could  not  have  been  under  sixty. 

The  boy  is  the  whole  thing  in  China.  The 
more  boys  the  greater  the  honor  of  the  father. 
This  ambition  for  a  multiplicity  of  sons  results 
in  an  over-production  of  all  children,  a  dissipa- 
tion of  masculine  strength  and  a  surplus  of  girls. 
I  know  there  are  people  who  will  scoff  at  this 
idea.  But  I  stand  for  the  idea  with  both  feet, 
and  if  I  were  so  minded  I  could  put  up  an  argu- 
ment for  my  side  that  would  make  the  Roose- 

58 


WRONGS  OF  CHINESE  WOMEN 

velt  idea   about  race   suicide  look  pretty   sick. 

The  large  and  polygamous  family  in  China  is 
against  the  vigor  of  the  male,  but  it  is  more 
against  the  female — girl  or  woman. 

There  is  a  bit  of  relief  from  the  sombre  view 
in  the  fact  that  China  is  improving.  Girl  infan- 
ticide is  decreasing.  It  is  nonsense  to  say  that 
it  has  disappeared. 

I  asked  the  missionary  doctor  about  this. 
"The  practice  has  decreased,"  he  said.  "There 
is  no  doubt  about  that.  But  why  don't  they  tear 
down  their  girl  towers?  It  would  be  more 
reassuring  if  they  did." 

"What  is  a  girl  tower?"  I  asked. 

"It  is  a  stone  turret  with  a  small  opening  at 
the  top,  so  small  that  once  an  object  is  dropped 
into  the  tower  it  can  not  be  recovered.  They 
used  to  drop  their  surplus  girls  into  these  recep- 
tacles. The  practice  is  now  absolutely  prohib- 
ited— but  they  ought  to  tear  these  towers  down." 

Another  thing:  the  custom  of  crushing  the 
women's  feet  is  going  out.  It  isn't  gone  by  a 
long  shot,  but  it  is  passing,  and  that  is  some- 
thing. I  counted  the  women  I  passed  in  one 
street  in  Hankow,  and  those  with  crushed  feet 
numbered  two  out  of  every  eleven. 

The  higher  class  women  of  China  are  not 
often  visible.  What  their  estate  is  I  do  not 

59 


LIFE  ALONG  THE  YANGTSE 

know  except  as  I  read  about  it  in  books,  and 
there  it  is  described  in  glowing  colors.  It  may 
be  true  enough.  I  have  been  dealing  with  the 
women  and  children  of  the  people. 

What  does  the  woman  of  China  think  of  her 
estate  ?  Probably  nothing.  Down  in  her  heart, 
I  would  like  to  bet  a  dollar  to  a  doughnut,  she 
doesn't  like  promiscuity  in  her  husband.  I 
don't  think  any  normal  woman  ever  did  or  ever 
will.  If  that  isn't  true,  why  the  human  emotion 
of  jealousy?  History,  ancient  and  modern,  Ori- 
ental and  Occidental,  has  never  been  without  it. 
And  it  is  still  in  good  working  order  in  the  breast 
of  our  Chinese  sister — make  no  mistake  about 
that. 

The  Chinese  women  have  a  lot  to  learn,  how- 
ever, on  the  purely  feminine  side.  It  isn't  their 
fault  that  they  haven't  learned.  They  haven't 
had  the  chance.  Their  features  are  lacking  in 
the  charms  that  intellectuality  imparts.  Their 
enforced  inactivity  has  taken  away  many  seduc- 
tive lines  of  limb  and  body.  Their  greatest  care 
of  coiffure  or  silken  gown — and  they  have  all- 
sufficient  vanity  to  bestow  worlds  of  attention 
on  both — do  not  get  the  results  such  efforts 
should  get.  I  could  go  on  and  say  that  if  the 
Chinaman  only  knew  it,  he  would  be  the  winner 
by  her  emancipation.  But  I  am  not  going  to  do 

60 


WRONGS  OF  CHINESE  WOMEN 

anything  of  the  kind.  The  Chinese  husband 
has  nothing  coming  to  him — except  a  long- 
deferred  punishment — which,  of  course,  he  will 
escape. 

At  the  same  time  I  think  time  will  bring  the 
Oriental  woman  her  emancipation.  I  am  dead 
sure  that  China  can  not  mix  very  much  of  this 
republican  form  of  government  up  with  her 
daily  life  without  starting  something  in  the 
kitchen,  and  heaven  speed  the  day! 


61 


IX 
INTO  THE  BANDIT  COUNTRY 

WHEN  we  were  about  to  begin  the  third 
stage  of  our  journey  into  the  interior 
of  China  we  had  warnings  in  plenty. 
"I  advise  you  not  to  go,"  said  the  consul  general 
at  Hankow.    Then,  having  done  his  official  duty, 
he  lit  a  cigar  and  said:  "I  surely  would  like  to 
take  that  trip  myself." 

Everywhere  in  China  white  people  talk  about 
the  trip  beyond  the  gorges.  Everybody  dreams 
of  the  day  when  he  will  make  the  trip,  and  then 
shivers  at  the  prospect  of  doing  it.  "What!"  I 
have  been  asked  a  hundred  times,  "do  you  mean 
to  say  that  you  are  going  beyond  the  gorges? 
You're  going  to  take  the  risk  ?  Well,  I  envy  you." 
Of  course,  that  sort  of  an  attitude  makes  you 
eager  to  take  the  trip.  Yet  you  do  demand  par- 
ticulars about  perils — and  don't  get  them.  As 
nearly  as  you  can  make  out,  the  dangers  are 
two — navigation  and  bandits.  I  hope  to  be  able 
to  describe  the  dangers  of  navigation  later. 

62 


INTO  THE  BANDIT  COUNTRY 

This  last  stretch  of  the  river,  from  where  it 
comes  tumbling  down  out  of  the  center  of  Asia 
to  Ichang,  is  infested  with  robbers.  They  have 
a  weakness  for  holding  up  boats  bound  for 
Chung-King.  Their  object  is  money,  but  they 
are  miserably  careless  with  fire-arms  and  noto- 
riously poor  shots,  and  accidents  do  happen. 
The  captain  of  the  Siangtan,  which  brought  us 
from  Hankow  to  Ichang,  said  that  the  boat  from 
Chung-King  which  arrived  before  his  last  trip 
was  held  up  four  times.  A  major  of  the 
United  States  army,  who  came  down  in  Febru- 
ary, was  held  up  seven  times.  When  he  ap- 
peared at  this  end,  there  was  great  rejoicing,  as 
his  friends  understood  that  he  had  been  killed. 
It  was,  however,  another  white  man  who  met 
that  fate. 

Now,  I  had  this  thing  in  mind — twenty  years 
ago  if  I  had  wanted  to  travel  across  Oklahoma 
near  which  I  lived,  I  would  have  done  so, 
although  the  air  at  the  time  was  full  of  the 
exploits  of  Bill  Doolin.  And  while  I  wouldn't 
have  lost  any  sleep,  it  is  a  cinch  that  the  pas- 
senger from  New  York  on  the  same  train  would 
have  held  his  breath  while  he  was  crossing 
Oklahoma.  In  other  words,  these  bandit  perils 
are  always  a  great  deal  more  terrible  when  you 
hear  about  them  from  a  distance. 

63 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

Perhaps  this  feeling  of  assurance,  as  arrived 
at,  was  weakened  a  bit  by  the  thought  that  a 
Chinese  bandit,  like  everything  else  in  China, 
might  be  a  different  brand  from  his  brothers  in 
other  parts  of  the  world. 

For  nothing  in  China  is  the  same.  Recently  a 
Japanese  patent  medicine  firm  decided  to  open  a 
field  in  China.  It  came  away  up  the  river  and 
planted  a  big  sign  advising  Chinese  to  use  So 
and  So's  pills  for  the  liver  and  heart  and  so 
forth.  The  Japanese  are  nothing  if  not  enter- 
prising, and  they  are  some  advertisers.  But 
they  are  not  onto  the  curves  of  the  Chinese. 
The  minute  that  sign  went  up  the  Chinese  got 
out  the  story  that  the  Japanese  government  was 
engaged  in  a  gigantic  conspiracy  to  get  the 
Chinese  to  take  these  pills  and  kill  the  whole 
nation  off.  There  has  been  no  sale  for  these 
pills  since. 

It  is  so  in  everything.  A  few  years  ago  there 
was  a  tremendous  famine  in  this  district.  Peo- 
ple by  the  hundreds  of  thousands  died  of  starva- 
tion. All  the  nations  of  the  world  sent  aid. 
From  America  came  cheese.  Many  Chinese  died 
of  starvation  rather  than  touch  it.  They  will 
not  eat  cheese,  any  more  than  you  would  eat 
kitten. 

The  chief  engineer  of  the  Siangtan  told  me 
64 


INTO  THE  BANDIT  COUNTRY 

about  the  Chinese  method  of  revenge — whjch  is 
to  kill  yourself  on  the  door-step  of  your  enemy; 
this  puts  the  kibosh  on  him  right — it  glues  the 
evil  spirit  to  him  and  he  might  better  commit 
suicide  himself  to  get  out  of  the  deal,  and  he 
frequently  does.  The  chief  engineer  said  that 
on  one  of  the  trips  up  the  boat  carried  the  wife 
of  a  Chinese  general  and  six  or  seven  concu- 
bines. The  concubines  fell  to  nagging  the  wife, 
and  they  had  a  first-class  family  row.  But  the 
wife  won  out  over  the  concubines  all  right  by 
rushing  to  the  rail  before  them  all,  casting  her- 
self into  the  river  and  drowning  before  their 
eyes.  That  put  the  fixings  to  the  concubines. 
The  boat  put  out  and  fished  up  the  body.  But 
the  big  job  on  that  trip  the  rest  of  the  way  was 
to  quiet  those  concubines.  They  weren't  sorry, 
but  they  were  scared.  The  wife  had  tied  a 
"haunt"  on  them,  and  life  wasn't  worth  living. 

The  Chinese  will  not  rescue  drowning  persons 
in  the  Yangtse.  The  idea  is  that  the  spirit  of 
the  Yangtse  is  claiming  a  soul,  and  interference 
would  cause  the  spirit  great  offense.  Nice 
philosophy,  that;  nice  kindly  philosophy. 

As  we  shoved  our  way  up  the  river,  I  thought 
a  great  many  times  how  it  would  be  possible 
to  describe  the  landscape  to  folks  in  America. 
To  tell  you  there  were  fertile  plains,  green  and 

65 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

beautiful,  dotted  with  little  white  settlments  and 
backed  by  blue  mountains  in  the  distance  does 
not  mean  much.  I  have  wondered  if  I  should 
give  a  list  of  the  things  which  are  absent,  if  it 
wouldn't  give  you  a  better  idea  of  the  country. 
I'll  try.  There  is,  first  of  all,  no  smoke  from 
railroad  and  factory.  There  are  no  windmills  or 
silos  or  haystacks.  There  are  no  herds,  no 
roads,  no  chimneys,  no  lawns,  no  fences,  no  rec- 
ognizable barns.  I  have  seen  chickens,  but  no 
coops,  sheep  but  no  pastures,  pigs  but  no  pens. 
There  are  no  swinging  doors  to  the  houses,  and 
precious  few  windows — that  is,  an  almost  entire 
absence  of  glass.  I  have  seen  but  little  leather 
of  any  kind,  and  no  rubber.  The  average  town 
along  the  Yangtse  is  either  white  or  without 
paint  at  all.  There  is  no  artificial  color  in  a 
Chinese  landscape.  The  temples  and  the  pago- 
das may  have  been  brilliant  once.  They  are  not 
now.  This  is  a  primitive  people.  They  have 
little,  and  they  are  not  in  the  way  of  getting 
more.  They  have,  to  my  mind,  the  richest  land 
on  earth  and  the  most  poverty  I  have  ever  seen. 
It  is  a  condition  that  ought  to  make  robbery  a 
seductive  sort  of  a  calling.  But  notwithstand- 
ing, I  did  not  expect  to  meet  any  bandits  on  the 
upper  river,  as  I  had  been  warned. 


66 


THE  HOME  OF  A  DRAGON  PRINCE 

I  TRACKED  the  Chinese  dragon  to  his  lair, 
and  I  had  blistered  feet  to  show  for  it.  It 
came  about  in  this  way:  There  was  a  ten- 
day  wait  in  the  city  of  Ichang  for  a  steamer  up 
the  Yangtse  river,  and  while  there  I  heard 
about  the  home  of  the  dragon,  and  set  out  to 
visit  it.  The  trip  is  accounted  eleven  miles,  and 
as  a  precaution  against  exhaustion  we  had 
chairs  go  along,  although  we  did  not  use  them 
much.  I  tried  mine.  For  safety,  I  would  rather 
use  a  Ford  any  day.  There  were  four  men  ahold 
of  my  chair,  the  poles  of  which  were  about  six- 
teen feet  long.  Two  men  were  in  front  of  me 
and  two  behind.  They  dogtrot  a  short  distance 
and  the  first  man  yells  "ban-go,"  the  chair  is 
balanced  on  an  upright  stick  and  the  poles  are 
shifted  to  a  new  place  on  the  carriers'  shoul- 
ders. On  a  level  piece  of  ground  it  is  a  nice 
swinging  ride,  and  I  was  approving  it  when  we 
struck  out  suddenly  on  a  narrow  mountain  trail 

67 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

and  as  suddenly  came  upon  a  sharp  turn  around 
a  boulder  and  over  a  chasm.  Just  what  the  rear 
men  did  I  can't  tell;  I  couldn't  afford  to  look 
back,  but  the  two  front  men  had  a  dickens  of  a 
time.  They  all  yelled  at  once  and  the  two  front 
men  backed  and  filled  and  in  some  inexplicable 
way  swung  out  into  the  air  and  then  swung  me 
out  after  them.  I  didn't  like  it,  and  I  let  out  a 
protest  myself.  It  would  be  an  awfully  humili- 
ating thing  to  be  killed  riding  in  the  most  primi- 
tive mode  of  conveyance — a  chair.  We  had  to 
do  several  break-neck  bits,  and  I  preferred,  for 
the  most  part,  to  walk. 

We  traveled  up  a  valley  which  slashes  through 
the  mountains  with  a  small  chattering  brook  at 
the  bottom.  This  valley  is  in  the  interior  of 
China,  the  trail  is  never  over  twenty  inches 
wide,  and  most  of  the  things  I  saw  were  exactly 
as  they  have  been  for  four  thousand  years.  Men 
were  ploughing  with  bullocks ;  the  plow  a  wooden 
stick.  I  saw  harrows  about  three  feet  square, 
a  boy  spread  out,  face  downward,  on  the  imple- 
ment. Fields  of  paddy  rice,  in  terraced  lakes, 
reached  to  the  top  of  the  hills,  and  there  was  a 
sort  of  kafir  corn,  little  patches  of  poor  cotton, 
sweet  potatoes,  red  peppers  and  a  few  pumpkin 
vines.  The  average  field  could  not  have  been 
over  a  third  of  an  acre. 

68 


THE  HOME  OF  A  DRAGON  PRINCE 

The  houses  were  fairly  good.  We  had  a  close 
view  of  them,  as  the  trail  we  followed  went 
through  front  yards,  over  front  and  back 
porches,  and  occasionally  straight  through  a  cot- 
tage. In  a  good  many  instances  fire-crackers  were 
touched  off,  either  to  overcome  our  influence 
or  to  welcome  us — I  got  both  explanations.  At 
very  frequent  intervals  we  passed  little  wayside 
shrines,  coops  of  stone  in  which  four  or  five 
plaster  gods  stood.  The  people  looked  prosper- 
ous in  a  way.  We  passed  many  of  them  on  the 
trail — once  a  jolly  farmer  carrying  his  twin 
girls,  each  in  a  basket,  and  the  two  swung  to  a 
pole  across  his  shoulders.  At  another  point  we 
came  upon  a  country  belle,  clad  in  beautiful  blue 
embroidered  trousers,  and  she  stumped  ahead  of 
us  on  her  bound  feet  with  great  fear.  Some  of 
the  older  men  saluted  us,  but  generally  there 
was  a  retreat  by  the  whole  family  indoors,  and 
then  a  cautious  and  curious  issuing  forth  after 
we  had  passed. 

As  we  mounted  higher  into  the  hills  we  saw 
many  blue-jays,  with  tails  ten  or  twelve  inches 
long  and  vividly  green  and  red  dragon  flies  and 
many  praying  mancas,  a  sort  of  Chinese  grass- 
hopper. The  echoes  of  the  valley  were  marvel- 
ous at  places,  and  at  one  point  we  listened  to  a 
Chinese  girl  shaking  rice  in  a  sieve  fully  a  mile 

69 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

away.  Farther  along  we  came  upon  a  dog, 
perched  upon  a  rock,  and  awaking  in  the  dis- 
tance a  whole  world  of  canine  echoes.  He 
seemed  possessed  and  gaunt — evidently  indus- 
triously barking  his  life  away  at  foes  who  did 
not  exist. 

Our  objective  was  Lung- Wan-Tung — the  cave 
of  the  dragon  prince;  that  is,  the  home  of  the 
king  of  the  dragons.  It  would  be  difficult  to  tell 
where  China  got  this  dragon  idea.  Politically, 
China  is  trying  to  get  rid  of  it.  The  republic 
has  put  it  off  the  flag  and  postage  stamp,  but  it 
persists  everywhere  else,  and  the  people  up  in 
this  valley  believe  that  the  old  he-dragon  of  the 
whole  outfit  lives  in  a  subterranean  cave  up  in 
these  mountains.  They  have  so  believed  for 
centuries.  No  one  has  ever  seen  him,  but  that 
makes  no  difference. 

The  mountain-side  at  the  head  of  the  valley  is 
broken  off  and  a  great  ledge  of  rocks  sticks  out 
over  the  entrance  to  the  cave.  Beneath  this 
ledge,  and  completely  roofed  by  it,  stands  a  very 
large  and  beautiful  temple.  In  the  front  yard 
of  this  temple  is  a  big  stone  fountain,  and  into 
this  fountain  pours  a  stream  of  water  from  the 
edge  of  the  ledge  two  hundred  feet  above.  This 
water  sparkling  in  the  sunshine  gives  a  really 
beautiful  effect. 

70 


THE  HOME  OF  A  DRAGON  PRINCE 

The  priest  of  the  temple  gave  us  a  cordial 
welcome.  I  didn't  get  him  right  at  the  start, 
but  eventually  got  onto  his  curves.  I  thought 
he  wanted  to  take  my  hat.  But  that  wasn't  it. 
He  wanted  to  shake  hands.  I  did  shake  hands 
with  him,  but  his  finger  nails  were  so  long  that 
I  had  the  sensation  of  feeling  around  in  a 
bureau  drawer  full  of  razors.  We  passed  on 
through  the  temple.  The  gilded  gods  in  double 
row  in  front  of  the  altar  were  on  hand,  a  deep- 
toned  bell  which  I  tried,  and  also  a  barrel-shaped 
drum  which  I  thumped  once  for  luck.  There 
also  appeared  in  this  shrine  three  umbrellas  of 
"ten  thousand  memories."  These  are  umbrellas 
hung  over  with  thousands  of  labels  carrying 
Chinese  characters.  At  some  former  period 
several  thousand  admirers  of  some  priest  each 
contributed  a  label  and  presented  the  whole 
business  to  the  temple.  They  were  very  old, 
dilapidated  and  discolored,  these  umbrellas. 

The  priest  did  not  accompany  us  to  the  cave, 
immediately  back  of  the  altar — why  he  did  not, 
we  could  not  make  out.  Boats  floated  at  the 
edge  of  the  lake,  but  the  water  was  up  to  the 
roof  of  the  cavern,  and  we  could  not  push  back 
into  it.  It  has  never  been  explored.  That 
keeps  the  dragon  story  good. 

Now,  it  is  impossible  to  understand  China. 
71 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

One  soon  wearies  of  asking  why.  The  country 
simply  does  not  parse.  If  a  procession  passes 
along  the  river  bank  at  night,  firing  crackers, 
beating  gongs  and  yelling,  you  can't  find  out 
why,  and  you  quit  trying.  If  a  boatload  of  men 
at  8  o'clock  in  the  morning  come  drifting  down 
the  current  in  a  row  boat,  beating  gongs  and 
playing  pipes,  you  want  to  know  what  it  is  all 
about.  You  won't  find  out.  I  am  convinced 
that  a  lot  of  these  Chinese  do  things  they  can't 
explain  themselves.  But  although  your  curi- 
osity is  likely  to  callous,  China  remains  the  coun- 
try of  constant  surprises. 

Here  I  was  in  an  unfrequented  valley  in  the 
interior  of  China  at  an  ancient  shrine.  My  host 
was  a  holy  man — far  removed  from  contact  with 
civilization.  Whatever  Greece  had  given  to  the 
world,  whatever  Rome  had  contributed  to  life, 
he  remained  innocent  of.  He,  his  shrine  and 
his  parishioners,  their  faith,  their  works,  their 
lives  and  labors  and  loves  were  all  alike  alien  to 
this  age  as  I  know  it.  My  coat,  my  shoes,  my 
hat,  even  my  nose  glasses,  had  been  the  objects 
of  the  closest  but  most  polite  scrutiny.  I  might 
as  well  have  dropped  from  Mars  or  Saturn. 

And  then  the  old  priest,  before  we  said  good- 
bye, produced  from  the  bottom  of  a  chest  a 
photograph  yellow  with  age — a  photograph  of 

72 


THE  HOME  OF  A  DRAGON  PRINCE 

himself  taken  in  his  youth.  He  showed  it  to  me 
with  pride.  It  was  a  good  likeness  and  unmis- 
takably my  host  in  his  younger  days.  And  in 
the  photograph  he  was  wearing  pointed  shoes,  a 
sack  coat,  a  standing  collar  and  a  derby.  Where 
had  he  been  in  his  youth?  I  don't  know.  But 
he  had  come  back  in  his  old  age  to  be  the  guard- 
ian of  the  dragon. 


73 


XI 
HANDLING  THE  YANGTSE  JUNKS 

ALL  the  big  Yangtse  river  steamers  stop 
at  Ichang,  for  the  gorges  are  beyond, 
and  the  gorges  stop  things.    Everything 
in  the  way  of  cargo  the  steamers  bring  this  far 
is  unloaded,  repacked  in  smaller  packages  and 
put  on  junks  for  the  trip  over  the  rapids. 

Here  is  a  junk  as  she  raises  anchor  for  the 
trip  up  through  the  gorges.  A  man  climbs  to 
the  top  of  the  sixty-foot  mast  and  ties  a  delicate 
little  ornament  to  it,  the  daintiest  things  I  have 
seen  in  China.  Simultaneously  someone  on 
board  turns  loose  a  lot  of  fire-crackers,  and  im- 
mediately after  the  gongs  are  going.  It  is  no 
use  to  ask  why,  but  no  self  -respecting  junk  ever 
starts  without  this  racket.  After  this  Fourth 
of  July  celebration,  the  men  all  lay  hold  of  the 
ropes  (they  are  made  of  braided  bamboo)  and 
begin  a  song,  and  the  sail  spreads  to  the  breeze. 
Usually  the  skipper  plants  himself  well  forward 
and  sounds  a  tin  whistle.  This  is  whistling  for 

74 


HANDLING  THE  YANGTSE  JUNKS 

the  wind.  You  may  think  this  is  Chinese.  It 
is  not.  Skippers  have  whistled  for  the  wind 
since  the  days  of  Ulysses.  When  the  junks 
reach  the  gorges  they  are  dragged  through  by 
the  sailors. 

Now,  what  do  they  carry?  Cotton,  tobacco, 
cinnamon  bark,  ginger,  in  season  tea,  silk  and  a 
good  deal  of  cotton  piece  goods  and  medicine. 
The  Chinese  are  some  medicine  takers.  About 
every  fourth  door  in  a  Chinese  city  is  a  medicine 
shop.  The  stuff  is  almost  always  dry,  and  it 
is  set  out  in  little  dishes.  It  includes  every- 
thing on  earth  and  then  some — dried  skin, 
powdered  scorpions,  granulated  lizard  and  all 
the  herbs  that  grow.  Ask  a  Chinese  what  some 
queer  looking  object  is,  and  if  he  doesn't  know 
he  will  answer  "medicine."  He  figures  that  it 
is  a  good  guess,  and  it  usually  is.  The  highest- 
priced  medicine  in  China  is  the  stomach  of  mos- 
quitoes. It  is  given  for  kidney  trouble.  As  a 
good  deal  of  the  medicine  is  vegetable,  it  prob- 
ably does  very  little  harm,  and  I  have  met  some 
white  men  who  say  that,  for  ailments  like 
fevers,  it  is  sometimes  efficacious. 

When  a  junk  arrives  at  Ichang  on  its  down- 
river trip  it  is  a  great  occasion  for  those  on 
board ;  that  is,  for  the  men.  They  get  to  see  the 
town.  I  have  never  seen  a  Chinese  woman  or 

75 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

the  children  get  off  a  junk,  so  all  they  get  to  see 
is  from  the  river.  A  junk  costs  somewhere 
around  $500  gold,  and  it  is  usually  owned  by  one 
family — that  is,  grandfather,  father  and  son. 
Their  children  are  born  on  the  junks,  and  they 
live  and  die  there.  You  will  see  chickens,  pigs' 
and  dogs  aboard;  everything,  in  fact,  necessary 
to  keep  a  household  going.  The  only  creatures 
who  enjoy  a  square  deal  are  the  men  and  the 
ducks.  Both  get  away  from  the  junks  occa- 
sionally. Nobody  else  does. 

When  the  junks  arrive,  they  line  up  along  the 
shore  about  eight  deep,  with  an  occasional  lane 
left  between  them.  This  lane  is  for  the  sam- 
pans. The  sampan  is  a  small  row-boat,  manned 
by  two  oarsmen,  usually  an  old  man  and  a  boy. 
They  do  all  the  traffic  between  boats.  The  cur- 
rent of  the  river  is  very  swift,  and  the  handling 
of  these  sampans  is  worth  crossing  the  Pacific  to 
see.  The  sampan  goes  down  stream  like  a 
rocket,  and  about  all  the  labor  necessary  is  with 
the  rudder.  But  up-stream  is  another  matter. 
The  up-stream  thing  is  accomplished  by  a  bam- 
boo pole  on  one  end  of  which  is  a  hook,  on  the 
other  a  sharp  point.  The  sampan  itself  is  about 
twenty  feet  long;  the  bamboo  pole  about  ten. 
Let  us  say  that  a  sampan  bound  up-stream 
comes  to  a  place  where  the  end  of  one  junk  is 

76 


HANDLING  THE  YANGTSE  JUNKS 

forty-five  feet  away  from  the  end  of  another 
junk.  It  is  necessary  for  the  sampan  to  cross 
this  open  space.  The  sum  of  the  length  of  the 
sampan  and  two  poles  is  forty  feet.  That 
leaves  five  feet  to  be  negotiated  in  swift  water. 
The  man  on  the  rear  shoves  his  pole  against  one 
junk  and  gives  the  sampan  headway  across  the 
five  feet,  and  the  man  on  the  prow  grabs  the 
next  junk  with  his  hook  and  drags  the  boat  up 
to  the  junk.  Now,  it  is  etiquette  to  jab  and 
hook  other  sampans,  and  the  result  is  one  of  the 
most  amusing  things  on  earth.  One  sampan 
may  get  a  good  forward  start  when  plunk!  a 
hook  from  another  sampan  will  stick  into  his 
boat  and  drag  him  back.  There  is  but  one  thing 
to  be  done,  and  that  is  to  throw  his  hook  into 
anything  in  front  of  him.  This  he  usually  does, 
and  the  next  boat  has  to  find  something  to  hold 
onto.  The  head  boat  in  a  procession  like  this 
naturally  has  a  dickens  of  a  time.  The  whole 
river  traffic  seems  to  be  tied  up  to  him  and  to 
be  dragging  him  back.  But  he  yells  at  the  whole 
pack  and  rushes  for  something  to  hook  onto, 
and  I  have  never  yet  seen  him  fail  to  grab  hold 
of  something.  Occasionally  one  will  see  a  line 
of  twenty  sampans  hanging  onto  a  vessel  under 
sail  and  stealing  its  power.  With  any  other 
nation  on  earth,  this  continuous  appropriation 

77 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

of  power  and   interference   with   boats   would 
lead  to  a  riot. 

Even  as  it  is,  the  Chinese  quarrel  a  lot  along 
the  river  bank.  I  have  seen  at  least  fifty  fights, 
and  I  had  one  interpreted.  The  Chinese  do  not 
strike;  they  shove  with  open  hands.  But  be- 
fore they  begin  pushing,  they  talk.  They  are 
positively  the  noisiest  talkers  on  earth.  They 
have  the  worst  of  tempers,  and  they  soon  lose 
all  control  of  themselves.  After  they  have 
argued  for  a  while,  one  of  the  combatants  shoves 
the  other,  and  the  man  who  has  been  pushed 
simply  throws  a  fit.  He  jumps  up  and  down 
and  screams.  It  must  be  that  touching  is 
equivalent  to  a  blow.  Then  the  man  who  has 
pushed  walks  away,  apparently  satisfied.  At 
once  the  man  who  was  throwing  a  fit  follows  the 
other  up  and  says  something  to  him  and  re- 
treats, and  the  pusher  runs  back  at  the  pushee, 
and  the  air  is  eloquent  of  murder.  But  I  soon 
learned  to  quit  holding  my  breath.  It  only 
meant  a  renewal  of  the  argument.  There  is 
charge  and  answer — a  regular  debate,  and  the 
crowd,  which  forms  a  good  old  civilized  circle, 
laughs  at  the  shots  given.  The  pusher  calls  the 
pushee's  father  a  cock-roach,  and  the  pushee 
says  the  pusher's  father  was  a  scorpion.  Then 
the  pusher  charges  that  the  pushee's  great- 

78 


HANDLING  THE  YANGTSE  JUNKS 

grandfather  was  a  cross-eyed  tarantula — and  so 
on,  exhausting  the  whole  insect  world  (they  do 
not  bring  in  the  dog).  Finally  the  man  who 
first  denounces  the  other's  eighteenth  ancestor 
wins.  But  he  mustn't  jump  any  in  between. 
He  must  come  up  to  it  regularly  and  in  order. 
And  when  the  winner  does  it,  he  puts  his  nose 
up  in  the  air,  pulls  up  his  skirts  and  stalks  away 
triumphantly — a  real  Yellow  Hope. 


79 


XII 
A  STATION  WITHOUT  A  RAILROAD 

I  CHANG  is  a  city  of  some  fifty  thousand 
souls,   and    now   that   they   have   moved 
some  of  the  graveyard,  it  is  on  a  regular, 
rip-snorting  boom.     It  will  be  a  cracker-jack 
place  if  they  ever  get  any  cars  on  their  rail- 
road.   Three  big  things  have  happened  here  in 
the  last  few  years  that  have  stirred  the  commu- 
nity to  its  depths. 

The  first  thing  was  this :  For  a  couple  of  thou- 
sand years  or  so,  Ichang  failed  to  land  a  schol- 
arship of  the  first  degree.  Time  after  time  it 
sent  students  to  Peking  to  take  the  examination, 
but  the  bunch  always  came  trapsing  home  with 
second,  third  and  tenth  degree  scholarships,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  century  or  two  the  town  got 
all  fussed  up  about  it.  Eventually  the  people 
appealed  to  the  priest  and  after  twenty  or  thirty 
years'  study  the  priest  hit  upon  the  nigger  in 
the  wood-pile.  Right  across  the  river  from 
Ichang  is  a  pointed  hill  called  the  "Pyramid." 

80 


A  STATION  WITHOUT  A  RAILROAD 

The  priest  said  that  the  evil  influence  of  this  hill 
was  certainly  putting  the  kibosh  on  the  place. 
The  hill  is  too  big  to  be  cut  down,  so  the  priest 
suggested  that  the  community  select  another 
hill  on  this  side  of  the  river  and  build  a  temple 
on  it  and  thus  overcome  the  devilish  voodoo  of 
the  Pyramid.  It  worked,  all  right.  The  very 
next  examination  Ichang  landed  a  first  scholar- 
ship, and  things  from  that  moment  began  mov- 
ing. And  this  led  to  the  second  factor  in 
Ichang's  prosperity. 

The  second  thing  was  road-building.  As 
Ichang  prospered  after  putting  a  quietus  on  the 
Pyramid,  revenues  accumulated  and  it  became 
necessary  to  spend  them.  Somebody  thought  of 
roads — chiefly  because  there  is  no  place  for 
roads  and  no  traffic  for  them.  It  took  like  wild- 
fire— this  road  idea,  and  like  wild-fire  it  spread. 
For  it  was  perfectly  plain  that  if  any  roads  were 
to  be  built,  the  graveyard  must  be  moved,  and  it 
was  equally  plain  that  if  the  graveyard  was 
moved  that  the  plain,  common  people  would  pull 
some  coin  out  of  the  deal.  This  requires  expla- 
nation. A  Chinaman's  relation  to  his  dead  is 
the  biggest  thing  in  life.  Ordinarily  the  dead 
are  not  immediately  buried.  They  are  stuck 
around  until  the  survivor  can  get  enough  money 
together  to  pull  off  a  first-class  funeral  It 

81 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

doesn't  make  much  difference  where  the  late 
lamented  are  stuck,  either.  There  is  one  corpse 
on  a  scow  in  this  river  port  that  moves  out  to 
the  ships  with  every  load  of  cargo,  and  the  cap- 
tain of  this  boat  tells  me  that  this  coffin  has 
been  on  this  particular  scow  now  for  over  a  year. 
When  the  funeral  is  finally  pulled  off,  a  big 
round  mound,  four  feet  high,  eight  feet  in 
diameter,  is  built  over  the  coffin  and  the  place  is 
considered  inviolate.  It  must  not  be  disturbed, 
and  no  shadow  must  fall  across  it.  Now,  peo- 
ple in  Ichang  have  been  dying  with  great  regu- 
larity for  a  long  time,  and  the  way  the  grave- 
yard spread  in  the  course  of  centuries  was  a 
caution.  It  elbowed  up  against  the  city's  walls 
and  then  flooded  out  over  hill  and  dale.  Here, 
then,  was  a  proposal  to  get  rid  of  a  part  of  it, 
for  the  purpose  of  putting  in  some  rock  roads. 
How  could  this  be  done  in  face  of  the  ancient 
Chinese  prejudice  against  disturbing  the  dead? 
Well,  they  could  be  moved,  and  the  families  of 
the  deceased  could  be  recompensed  for  the  ex- 
penses of  the  removal.  It  was  a  clever  idea  of 
the  politicians,  and  it  had  everybody  excited. 
About  seventy-five  cents  silver  was  allowed  for 
every  grave  removed.  The  whole  population  got 
busy  locating  its  ancestors.  There  were  hot  dis- 
putes over  many  of  the  mounds,  and  there  were 

82 


A  STATION  WITHOUT  A  RAILROAD 

some  cases  where  one  skeleton  was  palmed  off 
twice  on  the  authorities.  However,  on  the 
whole  it  worked  out  fine.  Everybody  got  his 
money,  and  the  market  quotations  on  ancestors 
will  probably  never  rule  as  strong  in  China 
again.  Coolies  dug  up  the  dead,  and  in  instances 
where  corpses  were  ornamented  with  rich  and 
ancient  jewelry,  had  first-class  scratching 
matches  over  the  booty.  The  dead  were  all 
dumped  together  somewhere — just  where  I  have 
found  no  one  willing  to  testify.  At  all  events,  a 
township  was  cleared  off  and  the  authorities 
started  in  to  build  the  roads.  A  good  many 
white  men  have  been  out  to  see  these  roads,  and 
they  usually  come  back  with  the  feeling  in  their 
heads  that  a  boy  has  after  he  has  finished  his 
first  lesson  in  geometry.  I  tried  some  of  the 
roads.  They  don't  lead  anywhere,  except  that 
one  I  tried  came  back  eventually  and  landed  me 
where  I  started.  I  felt  really  grateful  about 
that.  It  seemed  reasonable.  This  road  con- 
struction has  given  a  lot  of  poor  people  work, 
and  is  really  a  meritorious  public  work.  You 
will  realize  what  I  mean  when  I  tell  you  that  I 
saw  many  a  woman  nursing  a  baby  on  one  arm 
and  pounding  rock  with  the  other,  and  glad  of 
the  chance.  The  roads  are  about  sixty  feet  wide, 
and  a  sort  of  a  Belgian  block,  and  well  curbed. 

83 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

Now,  this  road  activity  has  done  a  lot  for  the 
town,  and  it  supplements  in  a  way  the  railroad, 
which  is  the  third  factor  in  the  new  era  in  the 
history  of  Ichang.  The  railroad  station  is  a  big 
two-story  building — one  of  the  best  in  China — 
and  the  round  house  is  a  wonder.  The  station 
has  never  seen  a  passenger,  or  the  round  house 
a  locomotive,  for  the  railroad  isn't  built  yet. 
Some  years  ago  a  Chinese  company  was  formed 
and  started  in  to  build  a  line  up  to  Chung-King, 
four  hundred  miles  away.  Fifteen  miles  out  of 
town  they  ran  up  against  a  mountain  and 
couldn't  get  over  and  had  to  quit.  The  national 
government  concluded  to  take  over  the  property 
and  the  stockholders  howled,  and  I  have  been 
told  that  it  was  these  same  stockholders  who 
called  President  Yuan  Shih  Kai's  hand  when  he 
tried  to  switch  himself  into  an  emperor.  At  any 
rate,  the  government  did  not  get  the  railroad. 
What  happened  was  this:  You  remember  that 
five  big  nations,  America  included,  agreed  to 
make  China  a  loan.  This  was  during  one  Amer- 
ican President's  administration.  Our  Wall  street 
crowd  got  in,  and  as  part  of  their  concession 
were  given  the  right  to  construct  this  line  from 
Ichang  to  Chung-King,  which  is  in  Szechuan,  the 
richest  State  in  China.  The  railroad  will  be  a 
gold  mine.  American  engineers  got  over  the 

84 


A  STATION  WITHOUT  A  RAILROAD 

mountain  difficulty  by  planning  a  three-mile 
tunnel  through  the  hill,  at  an  estimated  cost  of 
$1,000,000.  Then  bang!  Another  American 
came  in  as  President,  and  it  is  said  refused  to 
back  the  American  financiers  in  their  railroad 
loan  deal  with  China,  and  the  whole  thing  fell 
through. 

All  this  delay  doesn't  disturb  the  Chinaman. 
True,  he  hasn't  a  railroad.  But  look  at  that 
station,  and  behold  that  beautiful  roundhouse. 
The  Chinese  population  go  and  walk  around  it 
and  admire  it  and  exclaim  among  themselves 
over  what  a  truly  wonderful  thing  a  railroad  is, 
and  how  it  develops  the  country.  They  don't 
exactly  figure  out  what  the  station  and  round 
house  are  for,  but  a  little  thing  like  that  doesn't 
disturb  the  citizens  of  Ichang.  And  if  some- 
body should  come  along  and  announce  that  a 
locomotive  was  building  and  would  be  sent  to 
occupy  the  round  house  in  2216  A.  D.,  they 
wouldn't  bat  an  eye. 

But  the  town  is  booming  all  right  on  the 
prospects.  The  only  thing  which  really  surprises 
me  is  that  all  these  signs  of  prosperity  don't  kill 
the  place  deader  than  a  door-nail — it  would  be 
so  beautifully  contrary  and  so  typically  Chinese 
if  they  did. 

For  things  are  certainly  upside  down  in  this 
85 


NEW  AND  OLD  IN  THE  INTERIOR 

town.  Every  night  I  heard  the  watchman  go 
through  the  streets  whacking  a  gong.  I  dug 
out  of  the  chief  of  police  what  the  idea  is.  It 
was  to  notify  the  thieves  that  someone  was  on 
guard  and  they  might  better  beware. 

Every  day  there  passed  us  a  blind  beggar 
carrying  a  little  tinkly  bell.  I  gave  him  a  penny 
one  day,  and  he  turned  upon  me  a  face  that  was 
as  impressive  as  a  graven  image.  Was  he 
thankful?  Not  on  your  life.  It  was  my  place 
to  be  thankful.  Why?  Because  the  obligation 
was  on  me  to  be  thankful  to  him  for  giving  me 
the  opportunity  to  be  generous.  Do  you  get 
that? 

There  was  a  gambling  resort  across  the  way, 
and  every  night  the  gang  had  a  noisy  game 
which  kept  me  awake.  The  game  is  this:  A 
Chinaman  throws  his  hand  into  the  air  with  a 
certain  number  of  fingers  showing — two — three 
— four.  Simultaneously — and  it  must  be  simul- 
taneously— the  gang  yells  out  its  guess — two — 
three — four.  The  fellow  who  misses  the  guess 
— that  is,  yells  two  when  three  fingers  are 
shown — is  forced  to  take  a  drink.  In  any  other 
country  on  earth  the  loser  has  to  set  up  the 
drinks.  Here  in  Ichang  the  winners  make  the 
loser  drink. 

I  suppose  the  law  of  contraries  is  limitless.  I 
86 


A  STATION  WITHOUT  A  RAILROAD 

stopped  to  watch  some  Chinese  children  playing 
hop-scotch  in  the  street.  I  hadn't  seen  a  game 
for  thirty  years,  but  I  remembered  the  figure 
we  used  to  scratch  on  the  ground,  or  chalk  on 
the  sidewalk,  and  I  wasn't  surprised  to  find  that 
the  Chinese  figure  was  the  same,  except  that 
they  had  it  turned  upside  down. 
No  wonder  Ichang  built  the  round  house  first. 


87 


XIII 
THE  YANGTSE  GORGES 

I  TRAVELED  twelve  thousand  miles  to  see 
the  most  tremendous  piece  of  natural  scen- 
ery in  the  world.    If  it  had  proved  a  lemon, 
it  would  take  more  fortitude  than  I  have  to  own 
up  to  it.    But  as  the  scenery  proved  better  than 
the  advertisement,  I  feel  that  a  lot  of  people  will 
say  that  I  am  over-stating  in  order  to  justify 
the  journey. 

I  am  not  going  to  over-state.  I  think  I  can 
under-state  and  make  my  trip  seem  worth- 
while. Indeed,  I  hope  I  can  induce  some  of  my 
readers  to  make  the  trip,  and  some  of  you  will, 
because  once  they  get  a  railroad  up  into  this 
country,  the  world  will  flock  here  to  fill  itself 
with  awe  over  the  gorges  of  the  Yangtse. 

The  Yangtse  stretches  practically  across 
China.  For  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles 
it  bores  through  a  mountain  range  which  lies 
across  its  path  about  half  way  down  to  the 
sea.  On  this  stretch  the  river  is  bordered  by 

88 


JUNKS   SAILING   IN   THE   BACK   CURRENT 


THE  TRACKERS  OF  THE  YANGTSE 


THE  YANGTSE  GORGES 

high  mountains  all  the  way,  and  at  eight  dif- 
ferent places  in  this  stretch  the  mountains 
crowd  the  river  into  a  mere  thread.  It  is  all 
gorge,  although  there  are  eight  places  of  sur- 
passing interest. 

The  eight  gorges  have  the  following  names. 
Curiously,  the  mountain  range  in  which  they 
are  located  is,  Chinese  fashion,  un-named: 

1.  Yellow  Cat. 

2.  Lampshine. 

3.  Ox  Liver  and  Horse  Lungs. 

4.  Mitan. 

5.  Iron  Coffin. 

6.  Witches'  Mountain. 

7.  Bellows  Gorge. 

8.  Gorge  of  the  Eight  Cliffs. 

This  uncovered  tunnel  cuts  the  province  of 
Szechuan  off  from  the  rest  of  China.  Szechuan 
is  about  twice  as  big  as  Kansas,  and  its  popula- 
tion nearly  that  of  the  whole  of  the  United 
States.  For  four  thousand  years  only  about  one 
man  out  of  every  500,000  born  in  this  province 
has  ever  gotten  out  of  it.  It  is  the  richest  State 
in  China,  and  is  absolutely  isolated  from  the 
rest  of  the  world.  These  gorges  do  it. 

The  Yellow  Cat  and  Lampshine  gorges  are 
towering  hills  of  limestone  and  sandstone,  some- 
thing like  the  Columbia  Dalles  in  Oregon,  and 

89 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

not  quite  as  imposing.  The  river  narrows  to  six 
hundred  feet  at  Ox  Liver  gorge,  and  the  water 
deepens  at  places  to  three  hundred  and  fifty 
feet.  A  peculiar  stalactite  formation  sticks  out 
on  the  face  of  the  sheer  cliff  and,  overhanging 
the  river,  gives  the  place  its  name.  The  fourth 
gorge,  Mitan,  is  a  very  short  one — four  miles 
— and  the  mountains  rise  to  a  height  of  3,500 
feet.  Between  this  gorge  and  the  next  are  the 
Stone  Gates,  two  shelf  rocks,  which  run  out  into 
the  river  and  leave  only  a  little  passage  way 
for  traffic.  This  gate  passed,  the  world  is  left 
outside.  The  next  gorge  is  the  Iron  Coffin. 
The  approach  to  this  shows  two  box-like  ledges 
of  calcareous  rock,  discolored  by  water.  The 
Witches'  Mountain  gorge  is  a  very  long  affair — 
twenty-four  miles.  The  sun  is  shut  out  and  the 
defile  is  full  of  floating  mists,  which  touch  the 
whole  scene  with  an  air  of  gloom,  and  this  is 
intensified  by  the  appearance  on  all  sides  of 
yawning  caves,  high  up  and  low  down.  This  is 
followed  shortly  by  the  Bellows  gorge,  by  far 
the  most  tremendous  of  the  lot,  and  probably 
the  most  awe-inspiring  piece  of  work  that 
nature  has  turned  out.  The  mountains  pile  in 
upon  the  river  and  cramp  it  down  to  a  span. 
The  cliffs  rise  sheer  on  either  side,  the  highest 
going  to  5,000  feet.  Great  rifts  in  the  face  of 

90 


THE  YANGTSE  GORGES 

the  rock  open  black  depths,  and  dark  mouths  of 
caverns  show  on  both  sides.  Photography  is 
out  of  the  question  for  an  amateur.  Almost 
instantly,  the  pall  of  the  thing  descends  upon 
your  soul.  In  the  dark  sides  of  the  gloomy 
walls,  a  cleft  is  suddenly  revealed  four  hundred 
feet  above  and  in  it  two  clay  pots.  The  place  is 
inaccessible,  and  the  pots  were  fashioned  by 
human  hands.  How  did  they  get  there?  No 
one  knows.  They  have  been  there  for  centuries, 
beyond  the  record  of  history.  The  legend  is 
that  the  devil  put  them  there.  I  asked  the  cap- 
tain about  it,  and  he  said  that  the  river  must 
have  risen  that  high  once  upon  a  time.  Yet  he 
confessed  that  that  explanation  didn't  seem 
reasonable.  Can  it  be  that  the  Chinese,  the 
inventors  of  gun  powder,  the  printing  press  and 
so  many  other  things,  once  had  a  flying  machine 
and  forgot  it  ?  It  might  be.  And  whether  that 
be  true  or  not,  I  can  foresee  a  day  when  a  China- 
man in  an  Occidental  aeroplane  will  hook  those 
pots  down,  just  to  spite  the  devil. 

Out  through  the  deepening  shadows  of  the 
rrorge  in  the  distance  looms  on  a  mountain  crest 
:;  great  white  pagoda,  and  beyond  it,  plastered 
like  a  painted  toy  against  the  side  of  a  beetling 
hill,  a  yellow  temple,  and  below  it  a  city,  its 
crenelated  wall  reaching  from  the  water's  edge 

91 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

far  up  the  hill-slope  and  making  the  city  look 
like  shot  that  has  fallen  into  one  end  of  a  bag, 
for  the  wall  encloses  not  only  the  city,  but  farms 
beside.  Above  this  humps  a  high-arched 
bridge  at  the  foot  of  a  cataract.  It  makes  a 
pretty  picture  seen  from  out  the  overtowering 
crags  and  framed  in  the  black  edges  which  form 
the  mouth  of  the  gorge.  Here  the  rugged  cinder 
of  one  of  nature's  hot  passions  grown  cold,  and 
there  the  ordered  picture  of  man's  handicraft. 
Then  of  a  sudden,  as  if  nature  had  felt  the  chal- 
lenge, the  tips  of  the  cliffs  of  the  gorge  burst 
into  living  flames  of  purple  and  red.  The  sink- 
ing sun  has  set  them  afire  with  a  thousand 
dancing  prisms  of  liquid  light.  The  deepening 
shadows  of  the  gorge  are  shot  through  and 
through  with  films  of  gold  inlaid  in  violet.  And 
as  the  reds  and  purples  fade  and  faint,  and  at 
last  beat  out,  as  a  beautiful  butterfly  dies,  in  the 
golden  glory  of  a  waning  day,  nature,  as  usual, 
comes  out  winner. 


92 


xiy 

MEN'S  BATTLE  WITH  A  RIVER 

EVERY  boy  who  was  fortunate  enough  to 
be  reared  on  the  banks  of  a  swift-running 
river,  has  a  normal  curiosity  about  and  a 
rather  intimate^  knowledge  of  the  mysteries  of 
moving  water.  The  gentlest  element  on  earth 
when  left  alone  is  water.  Even  the  tiniest 
flame  will  burn.  A  zephyr  can  keep  you  from 
unfolding  a  newspaper.  But  for  real  docility, 
water,  in  a  bucket,  is  a  perfect  picture  of  peace. 
But  start  water  down  hill  and  it  wakes  up.  And 
slap  it  alongside  the  jaw,  trip  it  up,  pound  it 
over  the  head  and  kick  it  from  behind,  and  this 
self -same,  calf -eyed,  purring  water  can  go 
crazier  than  anything  on  this  mundane  sphere. 

I  have  seen  a  good  many  delirious  actions  by 
water  in  my  time,  but  I  never  saw  anything 
quite  so  violently  insane  as  the  Upper  Yangtse. 

As  the  Yangtse  comes  down  out  of  the  snows 
of  the  world's  roof  and  cuts  across  Szechuan,  it 

93 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

jumps  from  rock  to  rock  in  a  joyous,  light- 
hearted  way,  at  peace  with  the  world,  and  by 
the  time  it  reaches  Chung-King  it  has  become  a 
big,  dignified  river  with  a  strut.  Its  bed  is  wide 
and  deep,  and  it  moves  along  with  the  easy  grace 
of  a  man  accepting  a  renomination  for  office. 
But  below  this  city  things  begin  to  happen  to 
the  river.  The  mountains  sneak  up  on  it  and 
squeeze  it.  Even  that  wouldn't  be  so  bad  if  the 
river  kept  straight,  but  the  mountains  twist  it 
into  right  angles,  and  the  water  begins  to  snort. 
Still  it  could  keep  its  head,  if  that  were  all.  It 
isn't.  Rocks  jam  out  into  it  from  the  sides  and 
boulders  jab  it  up  from  underneath.  The 
Yangtse  stands  a  good  deal  of  this  and  keeps 
steady  for  a  while,  but  when  it  has  been  basted 
and  blasted  and  beaten  sidewise  about  five  or  six 
hundred  times,  it  simply  goes  off  on  the  wildest, 
eerie-eyed,  fire-breathing  shindig  that  it  is  pos- 
sible for  anybody  outside  an  insane  asylum  to 
imagine. 

Between  Chung-King  and  Ichang,  down  the 
river  four  hundred  miles,  I  quit  counting  the 
rapids — they  were  too  numerous,  but  I  watched 
with  renewed  interest  the  skill  of  the  junkmen 
in  handling  the  current — in  this  stretch — the 
most  difficult  navigation  in  the  world. 

It  takes  a  junk  about  thirty  days  to  travel 
94 


MEN'S  BATTLE  WITH  A  RIVER 

from  Ichang  to  Chung-King.  At  places,  if  four 
miles  is  made  in  twelve  hours,  it  is  considered 
great  luck.  There  is  only  one  thing  in  favour  of 
the  junk,  usually  the  wind  is  blowing  up  the 
gorges — the  Chinese  say  this  is  a  gift  of  the 
gods.  The  sail  helps  a  little. 

To  my  eye  the  water  seemed  to  have  five 
actions.  First,  the  swirl,  which  makes  the  river 
for  four  hundred  miles  look  as  if  it  were  covered 
with  vaccination  marks;  second,  the  straight 
rush  down  a  slope;  third,  the  whirlpool,  and 
some  are  enormous  and  deep;  fourth,  the  eddy, 
which  carries  the  water  at  the  banks  up-stream, 
and  fifth,  the  undertow,  which  is  powerful. 
Frequently  all  five  of  these  movements  are  in 
operation  simultaneously.  No  light  craft  couM 
live  in  it,  and  only  one  steamer  succeeds  in 
reaching  Chung-King  under  its  own  power. 
The  alternative  is  to  drag  the  craft  up,  and  that 
is  what  the  junkmen  do  and  have  been  doing  for 
four  thousand  years.  The  men  who  do  the  drag- 
ging are  called  trackers.  Cut  into  the  mountain 
walls  are  trails,  mostly  stone  stairs,  up  and 
down  interminably.  The  trackers  line  up  along 
this  track,  take  hold  of  a  bamboo  rope  and  haul 
away.  It  sounds  simple.  And  it  isn't.  It  is 
a  long,  continuous  dead  pull,  when  the  river  is 
straight,  and  it  is  a  back-breaking  performance 

95 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

whenever  a  rapid  is  encountered,  and  when  a 
turn  in  the  river  and  a  rapids  are  both  present, 
one  sees  one  of  the  most  interesting  spectacles 
of  the  whole  Orient. 

I  watched  a  junk  round  a  point  called  Ye 
Tan,  and  I  want,  if  I  may,  to  tell  you  about  it. 
A  big,  rocky  point  sticks  out  into  the  river.  Oh 
this  point  is  the  only  mechanical  device  I  saw 
on  the  whole  river  trip — two  wooden  rollers  set 
in  a  frame.  The  rope  runs  over  this  and  is  thus 
saved  from  being  torn.  The  Chinaman  who  owns 
it  charges  four  cash  a  junk  for  its  use — less 
than  half  a  cent.  On  the  lower  side  of  the  Ye 
Tan  Rapids,  a  great  fleet  of  junks  had  gathered, 
waiting  their  turns.  Finally  the  one  with  the 
right  of  way  was  swung  out.  The  man  at  the 
rudder  stood  ready ;  twenty  men  had  hold  of  the 
forward  sweep,  the  telegraph  pole  which  sticks 
out  in  front  to  steady  the  boat  and  two  boys 
stood  by  the  sail.  Out  in  front  ran  a  bamboo 
rope,  and  at  the  other  end  of  it  on  the  bank, 
were  one  hundred  naked  men  with  smaller 
ropes  attached  to  this  main  line  and  fastened 
around  their  chests.  All  was  ready.  Suddenly 
there  sounded  above  the  crash  and  roar  of  the 
water,  the  roll  of  a  tattoo,  rapid  and  incessant. 
It  was  made  by  a  small  boy  at  the  foot  of  the 
mast.  He  was  beating  a  skin  stretched  across  a 

96 


MEN'S  BATTLE  WITH  A  RIVER 

big  pot.  This  tattoo  can  be  heard  above  all 
other  noises,  and  is  a  signal  that  all  is  well. 
As  the  drum  began  to  rattle  the  trackers 
bent  to  the  task  and  started  their  song 
— a  mournful  chant  that  echoed  through  the 
chasms  in  endless  repetition.  The  junk  swung 
out  in  the  rapids.  The  river  clutched  her,  shook 
her,  dragged  her  back  and  down.  The  long 
bamboo  rope  vibrated  like  a  fiddle  string.  The 
men  were  screaming  their  song  now.  They 
moved  forward  a  foot,  two,  three,  four.  The 
junk  shivered  under  the  twist  of  the  water;  the 
drum  beat  sounded  louder.  It  was  a  magnifi- 
cent battle  between  the  mad  river  and  the  frenz- 
ied trackers.  The  river  was  winning.  The  steps 
of  the  trackers  grew  shorter.  They  made  a  foot 
now ;  six  inches  only  that  time,  an  inch  the  next. 
The  boss  was  at  their  side,  rushing  wildly  back 
and  forth,  yelling  like  mad  and  brandishing  his 
whip.  The  junk  swung  full  into  the  current. 
She  shook  like  a  living  thing  struck  in  a  vital 
spot.  Bang!  The  river  was  winning.  The  boat 
stopped  and  careened  in  the  roaring  rapids. 
Down,  one  after  another,  went  the  trackers. 
Now  the  whole  hundred  were  on  all  fours — 
every  mother's  son  of  them,  like  big  dogs.  Their 
chant  was  desperate  now,  a  screaming  frenzied 
chorus  of  rage  and  defiance.  Still  the  drum 

97 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

sounded.  Up  and  down  the  line  of  prostrate, 
sweating  men,  the  sinews  of  their  bodies  swell- 
ing like  whip-cords,  tore  the  boss,  brandishing 
his  whip  and  striking  now  right,  now  left.  The 
lead  man  was  up.  He  had  gotten  his  hands  off 
the  earth  and  was  getting  back  to  upright  again, 
inch  by  inch.  Then  the  next  coolie  to  him  lifted 
a  hand  from  the  ground,  then  two,  and  worked 
back  to  the  attitude  of  a  man  again ;  and  so  on, 
one  by  one  the  hundred  trackers  gained  their 
feet  once  more.  They  felt  the  forward  move  of 
the  long  line,  the  quivering  junk  straightened, 
started,  moved  forward,  first  an  inch,  then  two 
and  the  Yangtse  had  lost. 


98 


XV 


IF  you  want  strange  experiences,  the  Upper 
Yangtse  is  the  place  for  you.  Above  the 
gorges,  on  the  other  side  of  the  world,  life 
isn't  merely  a  succession  of  days  dovetailing 
nicely  into  one  another.  Not  by  a  long  shot. 
And  for  that  reason  a  problem  in  the  interior 
of  China  becomes  a  problem.  When  we  reached 
the  city  of  Wanhsien  there  came  out  to  meet  us 
a  young  American  representative  of  an  Ameri- 
can corporation,  a  blonde  young  man  with  a 
jovial,  cordial  way  about  him  that  made  you  his 
friend  before  he  shook  your  hand.  Now  this 
young  American  appears  for  the  moment  the 
most  popular  man  in  China.  Wanhsien  is  the 
center  of  the  bandit  district  and  they  have  been 
kicking  up  dust  all  summer.  Twice  the  young 
American  argued  the  bandits  out  of  the  idea  of 
looting  the  city,  and  everybody  in  town  knows 
it  and  bobs,  like  Punch  in  the  show,  when  he 
passes.  Well,  two  weeks  ago  the  leading  citizens 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

of  Wanhsien  foregathered  and  decided  to  give 
their  deliverer  something.  And  as  the  young 
man  got  the  rumor,  the  decision  was  to  present 
him  with  a  wife.  The  prominent  citizens,  noting 
he  wasn't  married,  determined  among  them- 
selves that  this  would  be  a  fine  gift.  At  least, 
so  he  heard.  And  he  went  up  in  the  air,  natu- 
rally. He  wasn't  looking  for  any  gift  and  least 
of  all  for  a  Chinese  wife.  But  how  to  refuse  a 
gift — that  was  the  question.  Here  was  all  this 
popularity — and  if  he  refused  the  wife — well — 
puff — out  would  go  all  this  popularity  like  an 
explosion  of  gun-cotton.  He  must  not  give  of- 
fense. And  while  he  was  debating  the  thing — 
up  came  the  delegation  of  prominent  citizens 
and  presented  him,  not  with  one,  but  with 
two  wives.  They  have  the  story  up  and  down 
the  whole  river,  and  they  have  said  so  much 
about  it  that  he  wants  to  fight  when  it  is  men- 
tioned. So  I  didn't  say  anything  about  it  when 
I  met  him,  but  from  a  friend  on  the  boat  I 
learned  that  he  immediately  put  the  two  dona- 
tions into  a  school  and  has  given  them  their 
freedom.  But  that  doesn't  satisfy  me  on  one 
point — what  kind  of  a  story  did  the  young  man 
put  up  to  the  prominent  citizens  to  satisfy 
them  ?  There  is  probably  only  one  man  on  earth 
who  speaks  English  who  is  in  the  know  on  that 

100 


A  CASE  OF  HUMAN  NATURE 

— and  that  is  the  young  man  himself.  And 
I  don't  blame  him  for  not  telling.  He  side- 
stepped the  wives  and  he  kept  his  popularity, 
for  every  time  he  leaves  town  the  whole  popula- 
tion turns  out  and  fires  crackers,  and  when  he 
returns  the  people  repeat  it. 

I  don't  know  whether  I  have  given  the  im- 
pression that  the  interior  of  China  is  another 
world  to  such  an  extent  that  you  will  think  that 
human  nature  isn't  human  nature.  For  it  is. 
Our  boat  passed  two  towns  side  by  side.  Don't 
dodge  at  the  names.  One  was  Fung  tu  Chang 
and  the  other  Fung  tu.  For  short,  we  will  call 
one  Fung;  the  other  Chang.  Chang  is  an  old, 
black,  dilapidated  down-at-the-heel  city.  Fung 
is  a  spick  and  span,  up-and-coming  metropolis. 
The  temples  of  Chang  are  tumbled-down ;  the 
temples  at  Fung  are  shining  jewels  of  liquid 
light.  There  is  no  wall  around  Chang — Fung  is 
surrounded  by  as  fine  a  piece  of  white  limestone 
masonry  as  you  will  see  in  a  day's  travel.  Chang 
is  packed  and  crammed  and  jammed  with  peo- 
ple. Fung,  the  beautiful,  hasn't  a  single  inhabi- 
tant. Chang,  the  ugly,  is  a  bedlam  of  noisy  ac- 
tivities. Fung  is  so  quiet  that  the  chance  dog 
who  gets  into  it  is  afraid  to  bark.  Well,  what 
has  human  nature  to  do  with  all  this  ?  Just  this. 
In  1870  a  great  flood  swept  down  the  river  and 

101 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

wiped  Chang  out.  It  literally  obliterated  it. 
Now  the  chief  magistrate  in  those  days  in  this 
locality  was  a  wily  old  politician  named  Ma.  He 
owned  a  farm  in  the  second  bottom  next  to  the 
town.  Here  was  a  chance  to  turn  a  pretty  penny 
and  he  proposed  that  the  town  move  over  on  his 
real  estate.  The  population  of  Chang  didn't 
move.  It  began  to  rebuild  the  town  on  the 
flooded  site.  Ma  was  a  fighter  right  and  he  built 
his  town — Fung — anyhow.  He  constructed  a 
splendid  wall,  he  built  beautiful  temples,  hand- 
some residences,  tempting  stores;  he  hired  peo- 
ple to  come  and  live  in  his  town.  But  the  real 
people  of  Chang  passed  him  and  his  town  up. 
They  didn't  like  it.  No  one  ever  discovered  just 
exactly  why,  until  I  came  along  and  gave  the 
answer.  It  was  human  nature. 

Not  very  far  below  this  live  and  dead  city 
I  had  a  view  of  the  official  residence  of  the  devil. 
This  is  Tsien  tse  Shan,  a  high  hill,  which  is 
probably  the  best  known  mountain  in  China. 
The  Chinese  religion  has  a  sort  of  a  purgatory 
scheme  in  it.  Everybody  has  to  have  a  prelim- 
inary dose  of  Hades  after  he  dies.  So  when  a 
Chinaman  passes  in  his  checks,  the  officiating 
priest  writes  a  letter  to  the  superior  of  Hell  an- 
nouncing the  name  of  the  new-comer  and  put- 
ting in  a  few  words  of  recommendation  and  a 

102 


A  CASE  OF  HUMAN  NATURE 

suggestion  that  the  stranger  be  shown  any  little 
courtesies  possible,  such  as  lowering  the  boiling 
oil  a  few  degrees  Fahrenheit,  or  giving  him  an 
extra  drop  of  water  between  broils.  The  priest 
then  sends  the  letter  to  this  hill  by  burning  it. 
The  smoke  from  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the 
dead  man  are  supposed  to  reach  the  place  at  the 
same  time.  There  are  temples  here  and  carv- 
ings showing  devils  punching  sinners  up  with 
red-hot  pitchforks.  The  place,  of  course,  is  lit- 
erally chockf ul  of  ghosts,  and  no  Chinaman  will 
approach  it  at  night.  Not  so  very  far  away  are 
two  big  stone  statues  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Han. 
They  were  simply  honest  merchants,  so  honest 
that  these  statues  were  given  in  testimony  of 
them. 

Along  the  Upper  Yangtse  there  is  some- 
thing like  this  every  few  minutes,  and  the  coun- 
try is  alive  with  bandits.  They  did  not  trouble 
us,  just  as  I  suspected.  The  captain  of  our  boat, 
the  Shu-Hun,  told  me  that  there  were  plenty  of 
bandits  all  right,  but  ordinarily  they  didn't 
monkey  with  the  Shu-Hun. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  nothing  monkeys  with 
the  Shu-Hun.  She  is  the  only  thing  in  this  part 
of  the  world  that  is  Chinese  that  laughs  at  the 
Upper  Yangtse  and  its  terrors.  Everything  else 
in  the  steamboat  line  that  braves  the  rapids  in 

103 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

the  gorges  has  to  be  hauled  up  part  of  the  way. 
The  Shu-Hun,  with  2,000-horse  power  and  a 
superstructure  light  as  tissue  paper,  and  a  bot- 
tom as  flat  as  a  pie-plate,  makes  the  trip  with- 
out assistance.  A  German  steamer  tried  it,  hit 
a  rock,  and  ten  minues  later  there  wasn't  as 
much  as  a  toothpick  left  of  her.  Recently  the 
British  tried  a  new  steamer,  the  Hua  Li,  on  the 
Upper  river.  About  the  third  rapid,  she  blew 
out  a  cylinder  head,  bent  a  piston,  twisted  an 
eccentric  and  had  the  time  of  her  life  getting 
out  with  her  hide  whole.  I  don't  know  what 
virtue  is  in  the  Shu-Hun,  but  I  think  it  consists 
of  her  captain,  a  Mr.  Brandt.  During  the  trying 
four  days  of  the  trip  (the  boat  is  tied  up  to  the 
cliffs  at  night)  Brandt  was  as  busy  as  a  man 
acknowledging  money  from  home.  He  dashed 
from  captain's  bridge  and  pilot  to  engine  room 
and  back  again.  And  he  kept  his  eye  on  the 
river,  the  most  treacherous  body  of  water  in  the 
world.  And  he  brought  us  through  whole,  as  he 
does  all  his  passengers  from  April  to  October, 
the  half  of  the  year  the  Upper  Yangtse  is 
navigable. 


104 


XVI 
THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY 

I  TOOK  part  in  a  Chinese  Fourth  of  July  at 
Chung-King,  and  my  mind  naturally  turned 
to  my  own  country  and  the  prodigious  prob- 
lems before  it.  Every  time  I  looked  at  China's 
job  in  government  and  felt  a  flood  of  hopeless- 
ness overwhelming  me,  I  took  a  look  at  my  own 
country  and  remembered  that  we  have  some  jobs 
at  home — and  when  it  comes  to  some  of  them — 
equalizing  the  rights  of  special  interests  and  the 
individual,  for  instance — the  prospect  of  a  suc- 
cessful solution  is  not  blindingly  bright.  It  will 
not  be  solved  by  increased  poverty,  extreme 
partisanship  or  the  cultivation  of  caste. 

A  long  pink  slip  of  paper  came  to  me.  It 
proved  to  be  an  invitation  from  Mr.  Chen,  a  high 
Chinese  official,  to  a  reception  in  celebration  of 
the  proclamation  of  the  republic  five  years  pre- 
viously at  Nanking.  This  event  took  place  on 
the  fifteenth  day  of  the  ninth  moon,  the  Chinese 
calendar  being  catawampus  with  ours.  The  re- 

105 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

ception  lasted  from  eleven  in  the  morning  until 
one  o'clock.  The  guest  of  honor  was  General 
Tai,  who  helped  set  up  the  republic  and  who 
insurged  when  later  the  President  Yuan  Shih 
Kai  tried  to  turn  it  into  a  monarchy. 

I  had  a  great  time  getting  to  the  reception. 
In  the  first  place,  the  streets  are  not  as  wide  as 
a  city  sidewalk  in  the  United  States,  and 
they  are  always  crowded.  Besides,  a  lot  of  the 
people  get  out  in  the  streets  to  work — mending 
shoes,  pumping  sewing  machines,  working 
leather  and  so  forth.  Today  they  had  a  lot  of 
flags  over  the  streets  leading  to  Mr.  Chen's 
house,  and  this  had  brought  a  crowd  of  sight- 
seers. There  was  no  room  for  them,  of  course, 
and  they  were  soon  packed  in.  Now  the  chair 
coolies  who  were  carrying  me  knew  they  were  on 
an  important  mission,  and  they  proceeded  to 
rush  that  crowd.  The  outrunner  shoved  men 
and  women  aside  roughly,  the  bottom  of  my 
chair  scraped  the  heads  of  children  in  the  street 
and  everybody  yelled  in  Chinese  something 
equivalent  to,  "Hold  your  horses,  the  elephant 
is  coming !"  My  coolies  could  have  knocked  down 
most  of  the  population  and  nobody  would  have 
said  a  word.  They  were  of  higher  caste  than 
most  of  the  onlookers  and,  in  China,  that  set- 
tles it.  China  has  caste;  has  had  it  for  four 

106 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY 

thousand  years,  and  it  just  naturally  persists. 
When  I  reached  the  outside  court  of  the 
Chen  house,  we  worked  our  way  through  a  herd 
of  saddled  ponies  which  had  brought  guests.  I 
gave  my  card  to  a  Chinaman  who  looked  like  the 
man  who  wanted  it,  and  he  preceded  me  into  the 
house,  holding  my  small  calling  card  above  his 
head.  Mr.  Chen,  attired  in  a  very  long  Prince 
Albert  coat,  greeted  me  and  introduced  me  to  a 
line  of  waiting  gentlemen,  General  Chan,  in 
rather  modest  uniform,  a  judge  of  the  supreme 
court,  in  Chinese  dress,  the  head  of  the  Chinese 
Red  Cross  hospital,  a  doctor  in  a  Prince  Albert, 
the  president  of  the  Chamber  of  commerce,  in 
Chinese  dress,  and  so  on,  about  half  the  crowd 
being  in  Occidental  dress.  All  of  them  bobbed, 
that  is,  did  not  bow.  Presently  the  consuls  be- 
gan to  arrive — very  much  gold-laced,  and  the 
officers  from  the  American  gun-boat,  likewise  in 
regalia.  The  Japanese  consul  had  on  more  gold 
lace  than  anybody  else.  When  about  a  hundred 
guests  had  arrived,  and  they  were  a  long  time 
doing  it,  some  one  announced  that  lunch  was 
ready  and  in  the  language  of  the  society  page, 
we  "repaired  to  the  dining  room." 

Now  during  all  this  ceremonial  I  had  been 
looking  around  for  the  Chinese  republic.  I  think 
I  found  it.  It  was  embodied  in  Mr.  Gurnier's 

107 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

Number  One  Boy.    Mr.  Gurnier  is  commissioner 
of  customs  here.    That  needs  explanation.  China 
borrowed  money  and  pledged  part  of  her  rev- 
enue for  payment.    To  be  sure  they  get  it,  the 
Occidental  nations  have  men  here  who  collect  it. 
Mr.  Gurnier  comes  from  France.    At  his  home, 
he  told  me  his  Number  One  Boy  had  been  bor- 
rowed by  Mr.  Chen  to  superintend  the  reception, 
and  Madame  Gurnier  said  that  he  was  very 
proud  because  of  this.    He  was  a  bandy-legged 
Chinese  boy,  about  twenty,  with  a  good  head  on 
him.      He    was    Old    Business    through    and 
through.     He  didn't  talk  much,  but  he  made 
things  fly.     He  had  all  those  servants  at  Mr. 
Chen's   moving  like   clock-work,   and   he   kept 
them  at  it.    They  looked  on  him  with  wonder, 
and  so  did  I.    Of  course,  I  knew  that  he  was 
merely   Number  One   Boy,   and   not  much   in 
China's   four  thousand   years'   incrustation  of 
caste,  and  I  knew,  moreover,  that  he  had  never 
given  a  thought  to  the  political  aspects  of  caste 
in  his  life,  but  just  the  same  I  saw  the  Chinese 
republic  in  him,  because  if  a  Number  One  Boy 
could  handle  a  reception  like  that,  there  is  com- 
ing out  of  China's  four  hundred  millions,  some 
day,  a  Number  One  in  the  president's  chair  who 
will  order  things  in  this  vast  country  with  pre- 
cision, decision,  vision  and  success.    It  will  not 

108 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY 

result  in  a  republic  such  as  ours.  In  this  dawn- 
ing day  of  democracies,  there  will  be  republics 
and  republics — one  kind  for  Europe,  another  for 
Anglo-Saxon  America,  another  for  Latin  Amer- 
ica and  still  another  for  Asia.  But  all  of  them 
will  have  the  germ  of  Washington's  and  Hamil- 
ton's and  Jefferson's  and  Lincoln's  idea — which 
is,  you  cannot  get  away  from  it,  that  the  evolu-: 
tion  of  a  republic  is  to  democracy,  the  evolution 
of  democracy  to  the  rule  of  majorities,  through 
spiritual  and  mental  enlightenment,  to  the  rule 
of  the  voice  of  God. 

In  the  dining  room  we  found  two  long  tables, 
parallel.  At  the  head  of  one  stood  Mr.  Chen,  the 
host;  at  the  head  of  the  other  the  guest  of 
honor,  General  Tai.  The  latter  was  appareled  in 
a  tuxedo  and  a  pleated  white  shirt  and  patent 
leather  pumps.  Evidently  he  was  no  public 
speaker  at  all,  for  the  first  man  to  open  his 
mouth  was  the  interpreter,  a  bright-eyed  youth 
in  Chinese  dress.  This  interpreter  evidently  had 
had  a  private  conversation  with  General  Tai,  for 
he  said  that  the  general  wished  to  say  that  he 
was  much  honored  and  that  he  was  glad  to  meet 
them  all.  Next  Mr.  Chen,  from  his  place,  made 
a  fluent  response,  extremely  brief.  The  same 
interpreter  therefore  translated  into  English 
what  Mr.  Chen  had  said.  Its  chief  point  was  that 

109 


DEMOCRACY  BEYOND  THE  GORGES 

the  Chinese  republic  hoped  to  maintain  relations 
of  amity  with  the  nations  across  the  seas.  After 
he  had  concluded,  the  American  consul  read  a 
speech  in  Chinese,  which  was  not  interpreted, 
but  which  we  understood  to  be  felicitations  to 
the  Chinese  republic,  and  a  wish  for  long  life  to 
its  president.  None  of  the  responses  were  ap- 
plauded. 

After  this  the  luncheon  was  served.  In  this 
part  of  the  world  it  is  invariably  called  tiffin. 
The  table  decorations  consisted  of  long  borders 
of  colored  daisies,  the  center  of  the  board  bear- 
ing occasional  designs  in  Chinese  characters, 
formed  of  rice,  colored  green.  From  the  ceiling 
hung  multitudinous  flags — a  good  many  of  them 
apparently  fanciful — as  I  judged  from  one — a 
blue  flag  with  a  horse  in  the  field.  About  the 
only  flags  I  identified  for  sure  were  the  Chinese 
and  the  Star-Spangled  Banner.  The  food  con- 
sisted of  sliced  chicken  and  beef,  small  sweet 
cakes  and  several  large  pink  affairs,  built  in 
stories,  like  wedding  cakes.  Sweet  wine  was  the 
beverage.  There  was  much  conversation 
throughout  the  meal,  and  a  little  jollity — but  not 
much.  General  Tai  shook  hands  with  the  host 
early  and  departed  and  we  all  followed. 

As  we  passed  out  of  the  big  courtyard, 
through  the  herds  of  stamping  stallion  ponies 

110 


THE  HOPE  OF  DEMOCRACY 

and  the  tangle  of  long-horn  chairs,  into  the 
midst  of  the  ragged,  half -naked,  dirty,  gaping 
multitude  outside  the  gate,  I  caught,  over  my 
shoulder,  a  glimpse  of  Number  One  Boy,  busy 
as  a  bee,  overseeing  the  dispatch  of  the  guests. 
And  on  my  way  home  I  bought  a  bushel  bas- 
ket of  fire-crackers  for  1600  cash  (one-half  dol- 
lar) and  when  I  reached  home  I  fired  'em  all  in 
one  lot,  for  hope  of  a  universal  democracy. 


Ill 


XVII 
SAVING  A  CHINESE  CITY 

I  NEVER  went  anywhere  in  my  life  that  I 
didn't  run  across  somebody  from  home.  So, 
sure  enough,  out  here  in  Szechuan — but 
that  isn't  the  way  to  stage  this  episode.  Let 
me  try  it  another  way.  I  run  the  curtain  up  on 
two  scenes: 

Scene  I.  A  Methodist  church  in  an  Ameri- 
can town  twenty  odd  years  ago.  The  pastor  con- 
ducting a  smashing  revival  and  stirring  things 
up  with  both  ends  of  a  long  pole.  Among  his 
converts,  a  slender  young  fellow,  a  newspaper 
reporter. 

Scene  II.  A  beleaguered  Chinese  city,  its 
gates  closed,  its  population  cowering  in  clouds 
of  battle-smoke.  Across  a  river  an  advancing 
army,  firing  as  it  marches.  Crossing  that  river 
a  middle-aged  man  carrying  a  strange  flag,  stop- 
ping the  army  therewith  and  saving  the  city. 

Ray  Torrey  has  been  out  here  as  a  missionary 
ten  years.  His  post  is  Tzechow.  Torrey  has  a 

112 


JUNKS   WAITING  AT   THE  TCHING  TAN   RAPIDS 


A  JUNK  IN  THE  RAPIDS 


SAVING  A  CHINESE  CITY 

barrel  of  horse-sense  and  the  folks  at  Tzechow 
soon  came  to  have  great  confidence  in  him. 

You  will  remember  that  China's  early  presi- 
dent, Yuan  Shih  Kai,  threw  out  an  intimation 
that  he  would  like  to  help  China  out  by  becom- 
ing its  emperor.  He  also  bounced  all  governors 
who  weren't  in  sympathy  with  this  view.  The 
cradle  of  Chinese  liberty  is  out  here  in  the  West, 
and  its  particular  guardian  is  the  state  of  Yun- 
nan. The  Yunnan  men  are  democratic  and  they 
are  not  foolers,  and  they  called  Yuan's  hand  and 
called  it  hard.  They  rushed  an  army  up  into 
Szechuan  to  seize  its  cities  and  valuable  salt 
mines.  Keep  in  mind  that  this  army  was 
marching  northward  towards  the  city  of 
Tzechow.  It  is  necessary  to  keep  this  in  mind, 
because  the  story  now  grows  complicated.  When 
Yuan  showed  his  monarchial  symptoms,  the 
governor  of  Szechuan  "stayed  with  the  gang," 
but  when  Yuan  Shih  Kai's  Peking  army  was 
shipped  up  the  river,  fifty  thousand  strong,  the 
governor  fluctuated.  Part  of  the  governor's 
army  held  the  city  of  Tzechow,  where  Torrey 
was.  The  Yunnan  crowd  was  after  this  army, 
and  it  was  marching  on  to  the  town  to  capture 
it.  Rumors  of  its  approach  preceded  it.  A 
Chinese  priest  who  was  attached  to  a  French 
mission  proposed  that  he  take  the  French  flag 

113 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

and  Torrey  take  the  American  flag  and  both  go 
across  the  river  and  see  if  they  couldn't  arrange 
terms  and  save  the  city  from  the  devastation  of 
a  battle. 

The  Chinese  magistrate  and  the  Chinese  gen- 
eral in  Tzechow  were  agreeable  to  this.  But 
Torrey  said: 

"No.  You  have  no  right  to  use  the  French 
flag  to  stop  a  battle  and  I  have  no  right  to  use 
the  American  flag.  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do.  I'll 
make  a  flag — a  church  flag. 

Now  the  Chinese  priest  didn't  like  the  idea 
and  he  quit  and  Torrey  conducted  the  proceed- 
ings alone. 

At  nine  o'clock  on  the  morning  after,  the  sol- 
diers in  Tzechow  opened  up  a  big  cannon  on  the 
Yunnan  men  across  the  river.  It  was  a  big  can- 
non, and  it  roared  something  awful.  Everybody 
hid  away,  for  the  Yunnan  men  began  to  pepper 
the  town  with  rifle-fire. 

With  this  opening  shot  began  the  busiest  day 
of  Torrey's  life.  If  he  was  to  do  anything,  that 
cannon  must  be  stopped.  It  wasn't  hitting  any- 
thing— it  was  simply  making  noise — but  as  long 
as  it  kept  up  the  Yunnan  men  would  fire  back 
and  nobody  could  cross  the  river. 

So  Torrey  said:  "That  cannon  has  got  to  be 
stopped.  As  long  as  it  is  whanging  away,  I 

114 


SAVING  A  CHINESE  CITY 

am  absolutely  powerless  to  do  anything  at  all." 
The  general  said :  "We  can't  stop  the  cannon. 
The  minute  we  stop  the  cannon,  the  other  side 
will  think  we  are  helpless,  and  all  will  be  lost." 
So  the  cannon  kept  roaring  away,  its  solid  shot 
tearing  things  up  on  the  other  side.  After  an 
hour  and  a  half  of  this,  the  Yunnan  men  lost  pa- 
tience and  they  unlimbered  a  cannon  of  their 
own  and  let  fly  at  the  town.  That  began  to  sober 
things,  and  finally  at  eleven  o'clock,  the  gen- 
eral agreed  to  Torrey  to  cut  the  cannon  out. 
Then  the  Yunnan  men  quit  and  Torrey  was 
ready  for  action.  He  had  been  getting  ready. 
He  had  been  inventing  and  building  a  flag.  Tor- 
rey made  the  flag  big.  Then  he  put  at  each  end 
of  it  a  big  red  cross.  Then  in  the  field  he  painted 
three  Chinese  characters — two  blue  and  one 
green — "you  could  see  'em  a  mile,"  says  Torrey. 
The  Chinese  characters  read:  "The  Church  of 
the  Gospels." 

With  this  flag  stuck  in  the  prow  of  a  row- 
boat,  Torrey  moved  across  the  river,  with  the 
whole  Yunnan  army  spelling  out  his  flag.  When 
he  reached  the  other  side,  he  sent  word  to  the 
general  that  he  would  like  to  treat.  So  the  gen- 
eral sent  a  representative  who  stood  up  straight, 
and  without  any  ifs  and  buts  about  it,  said: 
"We  don't  want  to  hurt  anybody.  But  we  do 

115 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

want  the  republic.  We  won't  have  anything 
else.  We  are  fighting  for  our  country.  That  is 
our  one  object.  We  don't  want  to  kill  people;  on 
the  contrary  we  are  fighting  for  the  people.  If 
the  other  side  will  move  out,  we  will  move  in 
and  nobody  will  be  hurt,  and  nothing  destroyed." 

So  Torrey,  who  liked  the  manner  of  this  pa- 
triot very  much,  said  he  would  take  the  proposi- 
tion to  the  other  side.  He  did.  The  other  side 
wanted  to  get  away,  but  it  feared  treachery. 
"If  I  try  to  move  this  army  out,"  said  the  gen- 
eral, "the  other  side  will  rush  in  and  there  will 
be  an  awful  fight." 

Thereupon  Torrey  proposed  that  the  general 
agree,  first  to  open  all  the  gates  of  the  city  the 
next  morning  at  six,  and,  second,  to  have  his 
army  by  nine  o'clock  ten  miles  away  from  town. 

"I  agree,"  said  the  general. 

And  then  Torrey  showed  his  newspaper  train- 
ing, all  right.  He  said :  "Put  it  in  writing." 

And  the  general  did  put  it  in  writing  and  Tor- 
rey pocketed  the  document.  So  armed,  Torrey 
traveled  back  across  the  river  and  submitted 
the  agreement  to  the  Yunnan  general. 

Now  everything  takes  time  in  China.  This 
had  taken  time.  It  was  two  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon when  Torrey  got  the  first  agreement  out  of 
the  Yunnan  general.  It  was  midnight  before 

116 


SAVING  A  CHINESE  CITY 

he  got  the  written  document  from  the  Tzechow 
general.  He  had  taken  the  precaution  to  tell  the 
Yunnan  general  that  it  would  be  late  before  he 
returned,  and  not  to  grow  uneasy.  Therefore, 
it  was  early  in  the  morning  when  Torrey  re- 
turned to  Tzechow  and  sat  down  to  wait.  The 
Chinese  urged  him  to  go  to  bed.  The  Chinese  go 
to  bed  in  a  crisis.  Torrey  didn't.  He  wanted 
that  thing  signed,  sealed  and  delivered  before 
dawn.  And  it  came  back  0.  K.  at  two  o'clock.  It 
had  been  a  long  day's  work,  but  it  had  saved  the 
city.  Torrey  wasn't  taking  any  chances.  He 
jumped  up  at  five  o'clock  and  hustled  around  to 
see  if  the  gates  had  been  opened.  They  were,  all 
of  them.  Some  of  them  hadn't  been  opened, 
apparently,  for  centuries.  And  the  army  was 
moving  out.  But  Torrey's  work  wasn't  over. 
The  Chinese  Red  Cross  chief  came  to  him  and 
said: 

"There  are  thirty-seven  wounded  men  in  the 
hospital.  They  are  too  badly  hurt  to  be  moved. 
The  Yunnan  men  will  kill  them  unless  you  can 
save  them." 

Post-haste  Torrey  hustled  over  to  the  Yun- 
nan general  and  said: 

"General,  the  other  matter  is  now  arranged, 
and  I  have  a  personal  favor  to  ask  of  you." 

"I  will  do  anything  within  reason,"  said  the 
117 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

general.    "State  it." 

Torrey  explained  about  the  wounded  men. 

"It  is  all  right,"  said  the  general.  "They  will 
not  be  touched." 

And  they  were  not. 

The  people  of  Tzechow  make  much  over  Tor- 
rey, and  they  are  preparing  some  memorials  for 
him. 

But  that  day  Torrey  wasn't  thinking  of  me- 
morials. He  took  off  his  clothes,  folded  his  im- 
promptu flag  up,  shoved  it  under  his  pillow  and 
crawled  in  and  took  the  best  sleep  of  his  life. 


118 


xvni 

THE  BEGGARS'  HONG 

IF  I  had  not  made  up  my  mind  to  give  you 
the  picture  of  China,  as  I  saw  it,  I  would 
not  write  that   which   follows,   and   even 
writing  it,  I  feel  bound  to  advise  those  who 
are  supersensitive  to  human  miseries  to  pass  it 
over.    It  has  to  do  with  beggars.    Not  so  very 
far  away  from  the  place  where  I  stopped  in 
Chung-King  is  a  "beggars'  hong,"  a  beggars' 
headquarters. 

Every  morning  about  sun-up  the  beggars  is- 
sue forth  from  this  place  and  every  night  they 
swarm  back  to  it.  They  are  given  a  small  per 
cent,  of  their  collections  if  they  are  successful, 
and  they  are  fed  if  they  collect  nothing  and 
many  of  them  come  in  empty-handed. 

The  population  of  Chung-King  is  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  give  bountifully.  For  the  most  part  it 
must  be  held  up  in  the  name  of  sweet  charity. 
The  poverty  of  the  run  of  the  people  in  this  in- 
terior city  is  a  thing  that  cannot  be  described 

119 


by  anybody  except  some  one  who  has  suffered  it. 
Economically  I  suppose  the  cause  is  over-popu- 
lation— if  you  take  the  superficial  view  of  it.  In 
fact,  the  trouble  is  under-production.  Men  give 
their  brawn  to  the  most  laborious  drudgery, 
they  are  sober — China  being  the  most  abstem- 
ious country  I  have  ever  seen — and  there  are  no 
loafers — for  even  the  children  work.  But  the 
sum  total  of  all  their  labours  is  a  heart-sickening 
product — pinching  poverty.  I  am  not  going  to 
give  prices — they  could  not  mean  much.  Here 
is  a  thing  which  will  give  a  glimpse  into  the 
desperate  conditions.  Some  Chinamen  smoke 
opium — not  many  proportionately  and  mostly 
the  well-to-do,  for  opium  is  expensive.  Long 
use  of  opium  weakens  the  stomach  and  makes  it 
difficult  to  retain  food.  One  thing  that  can  be 
digested  is  milk  from  a  woman's  breast.  And 
it  is  possible  to  send  around  the  corner  and  bring 
a  young  mother  to  be  milked. 

Outside  the  silk  shops,  I  should  say  that  the 
average  shop  in  Chung-King  would  invoice  less 
than  five  dollars  gold.  The  family  lives  in  the 
store.  Each  family  has  a  cat,  invariably  teth- 
ered, usually  a  dog,  nearly  always  mangy  and 
supported  on  offal,  about  three  or  four  children, 
often  with  skins  as  black  as  the  ace  of  spades, 
and  one  or  two  pot-bellied  pigs.  These  animals 

120 


THE  BEGGARS'  HONG 

divide  their  time  between  the  street  and  the 
store.  The  beasts  and  their  owners  are  covered 
with  vermin,  and  disease  is  rampant.  I  should 
say  that  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  people  are 
pock-marked.  The  death  rate  from  tubercu- 
losis is  known  to  be  high,  and  the  streets  are 
vile  with  spittle. 

These  conditions  are  the  result,  in  my  opinion, 
not  of  racial  ineptitude  for  better  things,  but  of 
age-old  poverty — the  fecund  mother  of  all  dis- 
ease. In  the  midst  of  this  civic  cess-pool,  the 
population  is  a  smiling  one.  The  people  call 
across  the  street  from  shop  to  shop  cheerily. 
The  children  frolic  in  the  streets.  Every  court- 
esy is  extended  a  stranger.  There  is  no  open 
brutality  to  man  or  beast;  there  is  no  drunken- 
ness ;  and  there  is  very  little  homicide. 

The  people  are  not  meat-eaters.  They  live  on 
vegetables  mostly,  and  eggs.  The  beef  animal 
is  a  beast  of  burden,  or  is  used  for  draft  pur- 
poses. And  in  this  connection,  the  Chinese  cow, 
having  been  put  to  the  plow,  has  turned  per- 
verse. She  will  not  enter  into  economic  rela- 
tions with  the  milkman.  She  will  give  down 
milk  for  the  calf,  but  not  for  the  trade.  As  a 
consequence,  one  of  the  most  common  sights  in 
this  city  is  the  milkman's  procession.  It  usu- 
ally consists  of  the  milkman  in  front  with  a 

121 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

couple  of  tin-cups  and  a  folded  calf -skin  over 
his  arm.  Follows  a  cow  with  a  calf ;  a  cow  with- 
out a  calf  and  another  cow  with  a  calf.  You 
may  order  a  quart  of  milk  from  the  milkman. 
So  far  as  the  cows  with  the  calves  are  concerned 
it  is  a  scrap  between  the  calves  and  the  milk- 
man for  the  milk.  The  milkman  usually  comes 
out  second.  Better  results  are  obtained  from 
the  calfless  cow.  This  is  accomplished  by  rank 
trickery.  When  all  is  ready,  the  milkman  un- 
folds the  calf -skin  and  holds  it  up  to  the  nose  of 
the  cow,  who  sniffs  it  and  begins  to  lick  it;  at 
the  same  time  a  boy  takes  a  stick  and  scratches 
the  cow  behind  the  ear  to  make  her  feel  good, 
and  simultaneously  a  third  Chinaman  gets  to 
work  on  the  udder.  A  good  yield  from  the  three 
cows  is  a  quart.  It  will  rarely  go  more.  You 
can  hardly  blame  the  milkman,  if  the  local  gos- 
sip is  true,  when  he  conceals  a  bulb  of  water  up 
his  sleeve  and  helps  fill  up  the  tin-cup.  A  quart 
of  milk  costs  about  336  cash,  or  nine  cents  gold. 
As  the  meal  of  the  average  Chinese  here  costs 
about  twenty  cash — a  little  over  one  cent  gold — 
you  can  see  that  the  run  of  Chinese  never  have  a 
taste  of  milk  after  they  are  weaned. 

This  contribution  to  the  dairy  statistics  of  the 
world  which  I  have  made  has  been  for  the  pur- 
pose of  indicating  in  a  graphic  way  just  how 

122 


THE  BEGGARS'  HONG 

poor  a  Chinese  population  can  be  and  just  how 
desperate  the  situation  an  ordinary,  that  is  an 
unorganized  beggar,  would  face.  In  truth  a 
lone,  independent  beggar  in  Chung-King  would 
not  be  a  beggar  long — he  would  starve.  Hence 
the  beggar's  hong. 

The  hong  keeps  books.  The  beggar  is  sent 
out  in  the  morning  to  haunt  a  shop  which  the 
books  show  hasn't  whacked  up  for  a  certain 
number  of  days.  The  beggar  strolls  down  to  the 
appointed  place  and  stays  until  the  proprietor  of 
the  shop  comes  across  with  the  coin.  The  beg- 
gar thereupon  reports  to  the  hong,  and  the  mer- 
chant's name  is  checked  off  and  he  is  granted 
immunity  for  a  certain  period  of  time.  The  dose 
is  then  repeated.  There  is  nothing  in  China 
which  is  at  once  so  funny  and  so  terribly  re- 
volting as  this  operation.  I  posted  myself  on  a 
certain  corner  and  watched  the  game.  I  didn't 
look  at  the  beggar  at  first — I  had  to  brace  my- 
self for  that,  but  I  knew  he  was  a  beggar  and 
then  watched  the  merchant,  his  staff  and  his 
family.  Chinese  clerks  have  a  curious  way  of 
standing  in  a  row  in  a  shop.  This  row  of  Chin- 
ese on  this  occasion  went  into  a  violent  state  of 
argumentative  eruption.  There  was  the  beggar, 
crouched  on  his  hunkers  and,  there  he  would 
stay  until  he  was  paid.  Every  Chinese  in  that 

123 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

shop  knew  this  was  true,  but  no  one  wanted  to 
give  up  any  coin.  From  a  state  of  violent  argu- 
ment, a  shadow  of  deep  and  silent  disgust  grew 
and  enveloped  the  store.  It  seemed  to  be  set- 
tling solidly  and  solemnly  into  their  Chinese 
souls  that  the  beggar  would  not  go  away  unless 
he  was  paid,  and  that  the  longer  they  delayed  in 
paying  him  the  less  they  would  have  to  pay  him 
with.  For  it  was  a  moral  certainty  that  the 
presence  of  the  beggar  would  kill  off  trade — 
would  absolutely  paralyze  it.  While  a  China- 
man can  usually  smile,  a  Chinaman  who  can't 
is  a  truly  amusing  spectacle.  And  there  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  scene  before  you  ends.  For  you 
are  certain  to  look  at  the  beggar,  and  if  you  do, 
you  will  find  yourself  under  the  necessity  of 
bracing  every  nerve  in  your  body. 

The  merchants  were  not  long  in  making  up 
their  minds.  After  a  short  confab,  they  drop- 
ped a  few  coppers  in  the  beggar's  bowl.  He 
counted  them,  struggled  to  his  feet  and  moved 
away  in  the  direction  of  the  hong,  a  spectre  of 
life  more  terrible  than  death  ever  sent  from  the 
grave  to  affright  mankind. 


124 


XIX 
THE  COMMERCE  OF  SZECHUAN 

YOU  never  really  realize  how  difficult  it  is 
to  get  completely  out  of  touch  with  the 
world  until  you  come  to  the  Far  West  of 
China.  Just  beyond  are  the  forbidden  stretches 
of  Thibet  and  the  unexplored  crags  of  the  Hima- 
layas. Chung-King  itself,  is  in  barbarian  terri- 
tory. There  isn't  a  wheel  in  the  city — every- 
thing goes  in  baskets  or  in  chairs — nor  a 
telephone,  nor  a  faucet.  And  yet  about  twenty 
million  dollars'  worth  of  trade  annually  filters 
through  the  town  to  the  outside  world. 

I  don't  suppose  there  is  a  normal  school-boy  in 
America  who  doesn't  go  through  the  stage  of 
curiosity  that  I  did — when  seated  at  the  table 
he  begins  to  pop  questions  at  his  father  about 
the  food — what  is  cinnamon?  Where  do  they 
get  pepper?  Of  what  is  the  table-cloth  made? 
The  answers  to  these  and  similar  questions 
take  the  average  youth  into  imaginative  travels 
all  over  the  world.  I  think  my  first  desire  to 

125 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

see  China  awoke  in  a  grocery,  where  some 
highly  ornate  tin-boxes  with  teas  and  spices 
from  the  Celestial  kingdom  stood  in  a  row. 

Now,  in  China,  I  found  my  old-time  interest 
in  the  origin  of  many  articles  of  every  day  use 
reviving,  and  the  more  so  because  this  province 
of  Szechuan,  known  as  the  "garden  of  China," 
has  such  a  great  variety  of  products. 

Take,  for  instance,  white  wax.  If  you  go  over 
to  the  drug  store  you  will  find  a  bottle  full  of 
white  crystals.  It  is  white  wax  and  it  is  used 
for  coating  pills.  Now  you  may  be  dead  sure 
that  wax  came  from  Szechuan.  But  in  a  thou- 
sand guesses  you  wouldn't  be  able  to  hit  upon 
the  way  it  is  made.  Once  a  year  thousands  of 
Chinese  from  the  outlying  districts  pour  into 
town  carrying  curious  cocoons.  They  all  arrive 
in  the  period  of  a  few  days.  Then  one  night — 
and  it  is  always  the  same  night — the  cocoons 
hatch  out  grubs.  Every  man  takes  the  grubs 
and  puts  them  on  the  mulberry  trees.  The 
grubs  get  busy  and  chew  up  the  mulberry 
and  spit  out  this  white  wax.  It  is  gathered,  col- 
lected and  sent  abroad  and  eventually  winds  up 
in  those  drug  store  bottles. 

In  the  same  drug  store  you  will  find  a  row  of 
pretty  bottles  on  a  show-case,  and  presently  a 
young  woman  will  come  in,  sniff  daintily  at  the 

126 


THE  COMMERCE  OF  SZECHUAN 

bottles  and  exclaim  over  them.  It  is  perfume. 
The  basis  of  it  is  probably  civet,  and  it  comes 
from  this  province.  The  mountains  in  the  west 
are  full  of  all  kinds  of  wild  animals,  but  more 
numerous  than  all  the  rest  are  deer.  The  sup- 
ply is  inexhaustible.  A  big  part  of  the  popula- 
tion live  by  hunting  these  deer.  From  every 
deer  killed  they  extract  a  little  sack  of  civet. 
These  sacks  are  collected,  put  into  packages 
which  weigh  about  a  pound  and  are  exported. 
The  native  gets  about  seven  dollars  (gold)  for 
one  of  these  sacks,  and  it  is  a  lucrative  business. 
France  takes  more  of  it  than  America  does. 

Of  course,  the  biggest  export  is  silk.  Like 
everything  else,  the  silk  business  is  a  family 
affair.  Every  family  has  its  herd  of  worms  artd 
its  mulberry  trees.  Most  of  the  silk  is  spun  into 
yarn  and  the  yarn  is  sent  abroad.  That  isn't 
saying  that  the  Chinese  do  not  weave  a  lot  of 
silk  themselves,  for  they  do.  You  can't  poke  your 
head  into  a  house  without  seeing  a  Chinese  boy 
(I  see  no  girls  at  it)  throwing  the  bobbin.  But 
the  Chinese  silk  fabric  doesn't  catch  the  eye  like 
ours.  It  is  either  white  or  solid  color.  They 
don't  know  the  fancy  silk.  I  tried  to  buy  some 
for  shirts  and  I  know.  I  have  haggled  over  a 
good  many  pieces,  and  I  have  found  that 
Chinese  silk  comes  in  Chinese  feet — about  thir- 

127 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

teen  inches — and  is  only  half  the  width  of  ours. 
It  costs  on  an  average  about  fifty  cents  (gold)  a 
yard.  There  are  wild  silk-worms  here.  Their 
product  is  pongee. 

That  brings  up  the  matter  of  dyes.  The 
Chinese  dyes  are  vegetable  and  very  vivid 
and  I  suppose  lasting.  They  not  only  use  them, 
but  they  send  the  stuff  out  of  which  they  are 
made  to  other  lands.  Red  comes  from  a  flower 
called  saf -flower.  It  is  exported  in  large  quan- 
tities. Indigo  gives  them  their  blue,  and  their 
green  comes  from  a  seed  of  which  the  world 
takes  a  lot. 

One  of  the  heaviest  productions  for  America 
in  this  part  of  China  is  rhubarb.  It  is  sent  to 
the  United  States  apparently  by  the  shipload. 
It  is  used  in  medicine  and  seems  to  be  a  stronger 
article  than  that  which  we  grow  at  home. 

Bristles  from  pigs  are  collected,  sorted  into 
lengths,  tied  into  bunches,  like  shaving  brushes 
and  sent  abroad.  I  see  no  evidences  of  the  sale 
of  human  hair,  but  the  export  of  it  when  the 
Chinamen  cut  off  their  queues,  as  they  have 
done,  must  have  been  awful.  If  I  were  a  wo- 
man and  had  a  switch,  I  would  have  it  disin- 
fected just  as  a  factor  of  safety.  Duck  feath- 
ers are  shipped  out  to  the  United  States  by  the 
ton — and  a  ton  of  duck  feathers  is  some  ton.  Of 

128 


THE  COMMERCE  OF  SZECHUAN 

course,  eggs  are  sent  also.  Turmeric,  a  small 
root,  which  gives  prepared  mustard  some  of  its 
color,  is  another  exportation  from  here. 

One  of  the  richest  products  of  this  province 
is  wood  oil.  It  is  pressed  from  a  nut  of  a  tree. 
The  nut  has  four  pods  and  these  are  crushed 
and  the  expressed  oil  shipped  to  America,  the 
heaviest  consumer.  It  is  used  by  the  big  paint 
manufacturers. 

Tea  is  one  of  the  important  exports.  By  the 
way,  I  had  a  lot  of  sport  with  an  expert  tea- 
taster.  I  took  a  lot  of  different  teas  and  num- 
bered them.  Then  I  made  the  whole  lot  into 
tea  in  different  cups  which  I  also  numbered  on 
the  bottom.  The  tea-taster,  who  was  doing  all 
this  for  my  especial  benefit,  would  taste  a  cup 
of  tea  and  then  call  out  the  number  to  me.  He 
hit  the  right  number  every  time,  but  it  made 
him  smack  his  lips  several  times  and  think  hard. 
After  I  had  finished  my  test,  this  taster  told  me 
that  in  the  busy  season,  when  he  would  test  as 
many  as  1,200  cups  a  day,  the  mental  strain — 
not  the  tea,  for  he  never  swallows  any — but  just 
the  mental  strain  of  trying  to  grade  it  right — 
would  give  him  insomnia.  I  wasn't  missing  any 
bets  about  tea — for  I  have  used  it  for  years  in- 
stead of  coffee — and  I  had  this  expert  make  me 
a  cup  of  tea.  He  weighed  the  tea — a  very  small 

129 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

amount,  by  the  way,  and  brewed  it  in  water  for 
five  minutes — in  water  that  had  just  come  to  a 
boil — and  this  is  of  the  utmost  importance — in 
water  that  had  never  been  boiled  before.  I 
might  say,  in  passing,  that  if  you  don't  watch 
these  three  points — (1)  weigh  your  tea,  (2) 
brew  by  the  watch,  (3)  use  fresh-boiled  water — 
you  do  not  know  what  tea  tastes  like.  They 
don't  use  sugar  and  cream. 

There  are  many  other  things  sent  into  the 
world  by  this  people,  but  most  of  them  are  prod- 
ucts which  we  have  at  home.  Among  them  are 
asbestos,  mica,  copper,  antimony,  coal,  sulphur, 
hemp,  salt  and  sugar  (the  crude  brown  variety 
being  three  cents  gold  a  pound;  refined,  six 
cents).  Incidentally  I  ran  across  a  stuff  here 
the  other  day  that  the  Chinese  cannot  sell,  but 
it  looks  to  me  as  if  an  enterprising  American 
could  put  it  on  a  commercial  basis.  It  was  a 
vegetable  asbestos — a  flat  fungus  which  appears 
on  rocks.  It  looks  like  toadstool,  only  it  is 
tougher.  No  market  has  been  found  for  it.  It 
does  not  burn. 

Two  other  products  interested  me — one,  vege- 
table tallow,  made  from  a  plant  and  looking  and 
smelling  like  animal  tallow.  The  United  States 
buys  huge  quantities  of  it.  The  other,  the  oil 
from  the  soy  bean,  which  is  used  in  cooking,  and 

130 


THE  COMMERCE  OF  SZECHUAN 

which  is  said  to  be  the  basis  of  most  of  the 
bottled  table  sauces  for  meats  we  have. 

Most  of  the  farm  products  of  the  province  are 
consumed  there.  There  are  many  varieties  of 
rice.  Wheat  and  buckwheat  are  abundant.  You 
see  kialong  (millet)  everywhere.  Sweet  pota- 
toes are  fine,  and  Irish  potatoes,  while  small, 
are  sound  and  mealy.  Peanuts  flourish,  and  the 
oil  from  them  is  used  in  cooking.  There  is 
much  cotton,  but  it  is  pretty  short  staple,  as  a 
rule. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Szechuan  has  every- 
thing— save  one  thing — up-to-dateness.  That  is, 
it  hasn't  organization.  Every  home  is  a  factory. 
That  doesn't  go  in  this  world  any  more.  Theo- 
retically it  looks  good,  but  it  won't  work.  The 
lesson  you  learn  in  China  is  that  associated  effort 
is  the  greatest  find  humanity  has  made,  in  an 
industrial  way,  and  if  we  in  the  United  States 
had  the  corporation  idea  properly  harnessed, 
which  we  haven't,  we  would  find  ourselves  lining 
next  door  to  heaven. 


131 


XX 
THE  DOOM  OF  GEOMANCY 

CHINA  is  changing,  and  the  thing  which  is 
bringing  the  change  is  a  republican  form 
of  government.  The  fact  that  change  is 
coming  is  a  striking  tribute  to  the  potency  of 
the  republic  idea.  For  the  republic  idea  will 
probably  never  be  called  upon  to  go  up  against 
a  fiercer  proposition  than  China. 

China  is  the  last  word  in  conservatism.  In 
comparison  with  China,  a  stand-patter  in  the 
United  States  is  a  raging,  torch-bearing,  fire- 
spitting  radical.  China  has  been  traveling  the 
reactionary  circle  for  four  thousand  years.  A 
thing  was  right  because  it  was  old,  and  wrong 
because  it  was  new.  Sequentially  the  Chinese 
way  was  the  correct  one,  and  the  manner  of 
other  nations  erroneous. 

When  I  say  that  this  ancient  spirit  is  break- 
ing down,  I  do  not  want  to  carry  the  impression 
that  it  is  being  swept  away — far  from  it — it  is 
being  eaten  away  as  by  a  slow  acid.  But  it  is 

132 


THE  DOOM  OF  GEOMANCY 

certainly  crumbling  around  the  edges,  and  I 
want  to  give  you  some  instances  of  it. 

The  first  thing  to  get  brittle  and  break  off  is 
ceremony.  It  will  be  followed  by  the  evapora- 
tion of  the  pig-headed  idea  of  national  supe- 
riority, and  the  substitution  of  a  rational 
patriotism.  And  when  the  hour  strikes  that 
China  ceases  merely  to  know  that  she  is  superior 
and  moves  restlessly  with  the  desire  to  prove 
she  is  superior,  it  will  be  a  new  day  in  the  great 
East.  I  do  not  despair  of  the  event.  I  confi- 
dently expect  it. 

Since  the  beginning  of  recorded  time  China 
has  considered  all  the  other  nations  of  the  earth 
vassals.  The  name  "China"  is  not  known  to 
the  Chinese.  The  country  is  the  "middle  king- 
dom." This  middle  kingdom  is  supposed  to  be 
central  in  four  seas,  and  in  these  seas  the 
inferior  nations  exist.  Virtually  all  the  Chinese 
to-day  believe  that  Europeans  and  Americans 
are  inferior  to  Chinese.  This  is  their  attitude 
of  mind.  But  it  meets  with  frequent  contradic- 
tion. A  white  foreigner  enjoys  privileges  and 
immunities  which  even  the  humblest  Chinaman 
must  note.  In  Szechuan,  where  the  bandits  are 
active,  they  let  white  people  alone.  Annoyance 
of  these  means  trouble  from  the  nation  to  which 
the  white  man  belongs.  The  licking  Japan  gave 

133 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

to  China  in  1894,  and  the  high-handed  demands 
Japan  has  latterly  made  of  China,  have  added  to 
the  growing  impression  the  Chinese  have  that 
China  is  not  necessarily  the  whole  thing. 

This  impression,  of  course,  is  a  vague  one 
popularly,  but  it  exists.  The  average  Chinese 
has  no  more  idea  of  international  relations  than 
a  goat  has  of  geometry,  but  he  does  gather  some 
inklings  of  it,  nevertheless.  I  rarely  walked 
down  the  street  in  Chung-King  that  I  did  not 
feel  the  whole  population  had  a  feeling  of  kindly 
condescension  towards  me  because  I  was  not  a 
Chinese,  but  at  the  same  time  they  knew  and 
showed  that  if  anything  should  happen  to  me, 
somebody  would  answer  for  it.  They  were  more 
certain  about  this  than  I  was. 

The  Chinese  in  this  province  have  been  closed 
up  for  forty  centuries.  This  is  all  they  know, 
and  naturally  they  believe  it  is  the  center  of 
things  universally,  just  as  they  believe  that  a 
man  who  doesn't  believe  in  "f eng-shui"  (which  I 
will  treat  a  little  later  on)  is  mentally  deficient. 

A  people  of  this  outlook  naturally  believe  that 
all  their  customs  are  best,  and  therefore  resist 
change.  And  when  people  get  into  this  frame 
of  mind,  ceremony  thrives. 

Now,  ceremony  is  the  very  thing  in  China 
which  is  giving  way  before  the  new  order.  One 

134 


THE  DOOM  OF  GEOMANCY 

of  the  first  things  we  associate  with  any  idea  of 
China  is  the  kowtow.  For  a  good  many  cen- 
turies, Chinamen  were  expected  to  throw  them- 
selves on  their  marrow  bones  and  bump  their 
foreheads  on  the  ground  before  a  person  of  high 
official  rank.  The  emperor  demanded  three 
kneelings  and  nine  bumps.  I  haven't  seen  a 
kowtow  in  China  since  I  came.  They  are  cut- 
ting it  out,  and  it  will  soon  completely  disappear. 

Then  there  is  the  matter  of  queues.  A  few 
years  ago  virtually  the  whole  male  population 
wore  them.  The  old  idea  that  they  were  a 
badge  of  serfdom,  instituted  by  the  Manchus  as 
a  tribute  to  their  horses,  on  account  of  the 
resemblance  of  the  queue  to  a  horse's  tail — this 
old  idea  had  disappeared  in  the  course  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  the  average  Chinese 
felt  a  pride  in  his  hair.  But  when  the  edict  to 
cut  them  off  came,  the  Chinese  almost  univer- 
sally complied.  From  generations  of  devotion 
to  long  hair,  the  Chinese  has  now  gone  to  the 
other  extreme,  and  delights  to  have  the  clip- 
pers used  over  his  entire  noggin. 

I  came  across  a  merchant  who  told  me  that  he 
would  not  stand  any  longer  for  conventional 
nonsense.  That  is,  he  wanted  to  get  down 
directly  to  business. 

The  old  style  in  China  was  somewhat  like 

135 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

this.    A  man  wanted  a  suit  of  clothes  and  called 
on  his  tailor: 

Man — "How  is  my  honourable  and  distin- 
guished friend  this  morning?" 

Tailor — "Your  despised  friend  is  pleased  to 
greet  his  most  virtuous  patron." 

Man — "In  my  poor  and  humble  way,  I  have 
been  noticing  that  my  clothes  are  getting 
thread-bare." 

Tailor — "I  notice  that  the  very  fine  clothes  of 
my  distinguished  patron  are  splendid,  and  not 
to  be  duplicated  by  so  poor  a  workman  as 
myself." 

Man — "I  have  said  to  myself  that  I  ought  to 
have  a  new  suit,  and  that  my  honourable  and 
distinguished  friend  would  be  the  very  man  to 
supply  me  from  his  honourable  stock." 

Tailor — "If  my  friend  will  be  pleased  to  look 
at  my  inferior  stock,  I  shall  have  great  pleasure 
in  showing  him." 

The  extent  to  which  this  sort  of  flub-dub  was 
carried  in  China  is  really  beyond  belief.  If  you 
went  directly  at  a  point,  you  seemed  to  palsy  a 
Chinaman  mentally.  Ask  him  a  question  point 
blank,  and  his  mind  stopped  working.  He 
couldn't  think  without  the  preliminaries.  Bar- 
ter became  absurd — still  is.  When  an  object  is 
known  to  be  worth  ten  dollars,  the  merchant 

136 


THE  DOOM  OF  GEOMANCY 

starts  at  fifteen  dollars  and  the  purchaser  at 
five.  They  quarrel  their  way  upward  and  down- 
ward to  ten  dollars.  It  wastes  time.  And  it 
isn't  good  merchandising.  But  already  you  run 
across  one-price  stores  in  China,  and  this  mer- 
chant to  whom  I  was  talking  said  that  when  he 
went  to  his  tailor  now  he  said :  "Good  morning,  I 
want  a  suit  of  clothes."  If  the  tailor  went  info 
a  state  of  mental  catalepsy,  he  hunted  up 
another  tailor. 

The  greatest  victory  over  convention  in  China 
up  to  date,  however,  is  in  the  matter  of  feng- 
shui.  No  white  man  has  ever  understood  feng- 
shui.  I  heard  a  missionary  in  America,  thirty- 
five  years  ago,  try  to  explain  it.  He  didn't 
succeed.  No  white  man  can.  Feng-shui  means 
wind  and  water.  It  is  the  science  of  knowing 
what  is  an  auspicious  place,  and  the  art  of  find- 
ing it.  Let  us  say  that  a  man  in  an  American 
town  wanted  to  locate  a  new  hotel  in  his  town 
according  to  feng-shui.  He  would  consult,  if  he 
were  Chinese,  the  priests.  Let  us  say  they 
made  a  scientific  survey  and  decided  on  a  certain 
corner.  Now,  suppose  a  rival  builder  didn't 
consult  the  priests  and  resolved  to  put  up  a 
business  block  across  the  street  and  it  was  a 
story  or  two  higher  than  the  hotel.  The  priests 
might  say  that  this  was  not  according  to  feng- 

137 


FAR  WEST  OF  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

shui  and  there  would  be  a  riot,  with  a  life-long 
feud  between  the  two  citizens.  Over  here  you 
can't  do  anything  without  bumping  into  feng- 
shui.  No  man  thinks  of  locating  anything  over 
here,  not  even  his  own  grave,  without  consult- 
ing it.  This  sounds  funny  enough,  but  when 
the  Occidentals  came  in,  with  their  telegraph 
poles  and  smoke-stacks,  it  caused  a  heap  of 
trouble  and  some  blood-shed.  A  smoke-stack  on 
on  electric  light  plant  simply  knocked  the  feng- 
shui  in  the  whole  town  out  of  kilter.  So  did  the 
telegraph  poles. 

But  the  Chinese  are  knocking  under.  They 
don't  like  to  do  it,  but  the  point  is  they  are 
standing  for  the  most  flagrant  violations  of 
their  most  ancient  and  revered  custom — 
geomancy. 

That  is  a  long  step  for  China.  It  is  equiva- 
lent to  asking  America  to  change  the  name  of 
the  days  of  the  week,  put  forty-five  days  in  the 
month,  and  lengthen  the  year  out  to  seven  hun- 
dred and  thirteen  days.  That  would  confuse  us. 
And  ignoring  f eng-shui  confuses  the  Chinese. 

But  the  republic  idea  and  the  spirit  of 
progress  are  bringing  them  to  it. 


138 


XXI 
A  CHINESE  PARTY 

1HAVE  attended  a  Chinese  party.  The 
French  consul  in  Chung-King  knew  I 
wanted  to  attend  one,  so  he  contrived  to 
get  me  an  invitation.  I  shall  give  you  an  account 
of  "the  pleasant  time  that  was  had"  and  "by  one 
who  was  there."  The  party  ran  from  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  until  midnight.  During 
this  time  the  guests  continuously  arrived  and 
departed.  This  gentle  device  of  stretched-out 
entertainment,  prevalent  in  China,  puts  the 
kibosh  on  conventional  liars.  You  can't  say  you 
didn't  come  because  of  a  previous  engagement. 
You  have  ten  hours  to  choose  from. 

We  chose  six  o'clock,  because  we  wanted  to 
light  on  dinner.  I  figure  that  I  saw  a  real 
Chinese  party — except  that  I  know  that  my 
presence  put  some  restraint  on  the  crowd,  but 
perhaps  not  so  much  after  all. 

When  I  arrived  the  host  met  me  at  the  front 
door  and  personally  escorted  me  into  a  big  ante- 

139 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

room  paved  in  cement,  on  either  side  of  which 
were  chairs  permanently  set  against  the  walls 
with  small  tables  between  them,  the  whole  hav- 
ing the  appearance  of  a  small  lodge  room  just 
before  they  let  in  the  candidate.  I  took  a  seat 
and  studied  the  guests.  Across  from  me  were 
three  Chinese,  a  very  tall  one,  a  middling  sized 
man  with  a  scraggly  moustache  and  a  fat  one. 

We  did  a  lot  of  fancy  and  plain  sitting.  Then 
a  singing  girl  arrived.  She  was  very  richly 
attired  in  silk  and  her  feet  were  very  small. 
Her  cheeks  were  not  rouged,  but  her  hair  was 
greased  a  lot.  The  host  met  her  and  accompa- 
nied her  to  a  seat.  Next  there  arrived  a  big- 
boned,  business-like  Chinese  with  a  musical 
instrument  which  looked  like  a  croquet  mallet 
with  the  handle  cut  off.  He  tuned  up.  Then 
he  struck  up  a  tune. 

The  girl,  evidently  much  embarrassed,  put 
her  handkerchief  to  her  mouth  and  sang.  She 
had  a  pretty  fair  voice,  but  it  was  lost  in  that 
music.  It  isn't  fair  to  criticize  anybody's  music, 
but  when  it  comes  to  giving  an  imitation  of  a 
guinea  hen  dying  of  asthma,  a  Chinese  fiddle  is 
entitled  to  the  blue  ribbon.  The  song  she  sang 
was  dreadfully  waily  and  whiney. 

The  singing  girls  continued  to  arrive  and  sing. 
They  filtered  in  and  out  all  evening,  going  from 

140 


A  CHINESE  PARTY 

entertainment  to  entertainment.  Eventually 
dinner  was  announced. 

One  of  the  surprises  for  me  in  China  is  the 
absence  of  luxury.  Somewhere  I  had  gathered 
the  impression  that  a  Chinese  feast  was  usually 
in  a  room  smothered  in  rich,  damasked  hang- 
ings, the  ceiling  a  pendant  gold  mine  of  intricate 
carvings  and  so  on.  On  the  contrary,  every- 
thing of  that  kind  I  have  seen  is  exceedingly 
primitive  and  bare.  It  was  so  in  this  case.  I 
was  the  guest  of  honor,  and  I  had  to  start 
everything.  As  I  never  was  much  on  chop 
sticks,  I  rather  slowed  things  up.  Now,  I  know 
that  most  people  have  attended  Chinese  dinners 
in  America.  You  may  find  them  in  New  York, 
Chicago,  Kansas  City,  Denver  or  Frisco  with- 
out much  trouble.  But  this  dinner  was  in  the 
wild  and  woolly  west  of  China,  and  for  that  rea- 
son I  am  going  to  tell  about  the  food,  for  I  must 
have  had  the  real  thing. 

Before  we  sat  down  we  were  given  a  teacup 
full  of  chop  suey.  Then  each  man  was  given  a 
very  hot  towel  to  wipe  his  face.  We  were  then 
given  a  cup  of  tea — the  only  time  it  appeared. 
Next  came  a  little  pie — about  three  inches  in 
diameter.  It  was  made  of  persimmon.  Then 
the  towels  came  around  again.  Hereafter  I  will 
just  say  towels. 

141 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

We  sat  down.  In  front  of  us  were  small 
saucers  containing  small  bits  of  breaded  fish, 
shrimp,  sliced  duck,  sliced  cucumbers  stacked  up 
like  hay,  pickled  pig  lungs  and  very  old  eggs. 
These  eggs  had  been  varnished  and  buried  for 
several  years.  They  were  jellied,  a  bit  acid  and 
v^ery  good.  Towels.  Next  came  a  small  cherry- 
like  fruit — it  is  the  berry  of  the  lotus  plant.  It 
was  very  good.  Towels.  Two  soup  bowls  con- 
taining a  soup-like  mixture  were  brought  in, 
which,  after  I  had  speared  some  of  it  with  my 
chop  sticks,  the  company  assailed  with  enthusi- 
asm. It  was  boiled  shark  fins.  It  didn't  strike 
me  as  very  palatable.  Towels.  Next  came  young 
bamboo,  boiled.  Something  like  asparagus. 
Towels.  This  was  followed  by  a  boiled  vegetable 
tasting  very  much  like  raw  oysters.  Towels. 
Suddenly  there  appeared  in  the  midst  of  us  a 
suckling  pig  with  the  skin  very  brown  and  cut 
into  squares.  I  poked  off  a  piece  of  this  skin 
and  watched.  A  hollow,  hot,  thin-skinned  bis- 
cuit was  brought  in.  Each  Chinese  opened  up 
this  biscuit,  put  his  piece  of  pig  skin  in  it,  closed 
it  up  and  ate  it  as  a  sandwich.  As  soon  as  all 
the  skin  had  been  removed  and  I  was  figuring 
on  a  piece  of  pig  a  coolie  came  in  and  took  the 
pig  away.  That  was  the  last  we  saw  of  it. 
Towels.  This  was  followed  by  small  saucers 

142 


A  CHINESE  PARTY 

full  of  brown  duck  skin.  Towels.  The  next 
thing — in  a  soup  bowl — puzzled  me,  but  I  finally 
made  it  out  to  be  chicken  neck  cut  up  very  fine. 
Towels.  The  next  thing  I  recognized.  I  had 
seen  it  before.  It  was  bird  nest  soup.  This 
soup  is  made  of  a  sweet  bird  nest  which  is  gath- 
ered off  trees  in  the  tropics.  I  didn't  fancy  it, 
although  I  knew  that  it  cost  like  sixty — some- 
body told  me  that  fifty  dollars  wouldn't  pay  for 
the  two  dishes  before  us.  Towels.  All  this 
time  wine  was  being  served  out  of  pewter  tea- 
pots. It  was  poured  into  small  cups — holding 
about  two  thimblesful — and  was  heated.  It  is 
rice  wine  and  quite  weak.  When  the  bird  nest 
soup  had  disappeared  we  were  served  jujubes — a 
sort  of  date — and  then  the  chief  dish  of  the  eve- 
ning appeared.  It  is  called  Huo-Kuo-Tzu.  Huo 
means  hat,  Kuo  means  dish,  Tzu  means  a  lot  of 
things.  They  were  bamboo,  egg,  chicken,  ham, 
duck,  all  shredded  and  all  on  separate  saucers. 
Then  powdered  flour,  pepper,  salt  and  garlic. 
These  were  all  placed  around  a  big  copper  chaf- 
ing dish.  Alcohol  was  lighted  under  this  and 
water  in  it  boiled.  Then  each  of  the  guests 
reached  over  the  table  and  threw  something  in. 
This  was  done  with  much  exclamation.  It  was 
a  wild  scene,  and,  as  I  was  ready  to  go  the  limit, 
I  grabbed  up  the  garlic  and  dumped  it  in.  After 

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SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

the  whole  mixture  had  boiled  a  while,  each  guest 
took  a  portion  in  a  small  bowl  full  of  hot  rice. 
This  was  the  most  palatable  dish  of  the  evening. 
Towels. 

The  company  then  repaired  to  another  room 
and  played  Chinese  dominoes.  There  are  one 
hundred  and  thirty-six  dominoes  in  a  set,  and 
the  play  was  fierce  and  noisy.  Every  player 
smoked. 

I  left  before  midnight,  and  what  I  carried 
away  was  the  sight  of  one  Chinese  smoking  a 
metal  pipe  which  gives  only  one  puff.  A  small 
girl  stood  at  his  side,  blew  the  pipe  out,  filled  it, 
stuck  it  in  the  man's  mouth,  he  puffed,  and  she 
blew  it  out,  filled  it,  stuck  it  in  his  mouth,  he 
puffed  it  again.  I  watched  this  operation  for 
an  hour  and  a  half.  It  seemed  endless.  But 
it  wasn't,  for  just  as  I  was  leaving  the  man  put 
the  pipe  away  and  a  coolie  brought  him  a  bam- 
boo pole  six  feet  long  with  a  cigar  stuck  in  the 
other  end.  The  coolie  lighted  it  and  stood  there 
holding  the  pole  and  the  man  puffed  away  and 
went  on  with  his  dominoes. 


144 


XXII 
A  STRANGE  CEREMONY 

I  AM  going  to  give  you  an  impression  I  got  at 
Hua  Ngai  Hsu  temple,  near  Chung-King.  I 
don't  expect  you  will  see  what  I  am  driving 
at.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  what  I  am  driving  at 
myself.  And  it  really  doesn't  matter.  If  the 
thing  I  wrote  was  too  coherent,  it  wouldn't  con- 
vey the  impression  I  got.  Hua  Ngai  Hsu  temple 
is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  only  thing  of  its  kind 
in  China.  You  are  to  remember  that  this  is  up 
next  to  Thibet,  which  is,  in  turn,  up  next  to 
India  and  Persia  and  Arabia,  out  of  which  all 
religions  have  come.  Here  at  this  place  the 
Zoroaster  idea  caught  and  hung  on  like  a  frog  on 
a  rock  in  a  swift  current.  The  temple  is  Budd- 
histic with  fire  trimmings.  Its  priests  have  holes 
burned  in  their  heads  in  life,  and  their  bodies  are 
reduced  to  ashes  and  stood  along  in  rows  of 
ginger  jars  after  they  are  dead.  Both  these 
rites  are  extraordinary  in  China. 
I  had  prowled  around  the  temple,  which  is 
145 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

very  large,  and  had  visited  the  little  stucco 
building  where  they  put  the  body  of  the  dead 
priest  and  build  a  fire  beneath  it  and  had  seen 
the  rows  of  ginger  jars.  I  had  visited  the 
chamber  where,  before  a  tremendous  gold 
Buddha,  flanked  on  either  side  with  great  graven 
bronze  bells,  the  novitiates  kneel  every  Febru- 
ary and  have  the  holes  burned  into  their  skulls 
and  had  been  hauled  up  on  a  high  terrace  where 
I  could  study  the  roof  of  the  main  temple. 

This  roof  was  covered  with  symbols,  to  which 
a  man  might  give  a  life-time  study.  The  ones 
which  interested  me  most  were  porcelain  dolls, 
in  pairs,  which  straddled  the  long,  curved 
gables.  Each  pair  consisted  of  a  man  and 
woman  carrying  in  their  hands  utensils  I  could 
not  identify.  They  all  represented  people  of  a 
very  ancient  China,  for  the  women's  feet  were 
not  bound.  Each  pair  was  a  pleasant  couple, 
their  rigid  smiles  seemingly  in  contradiction  to 
the  dragons  and  elephants  and  tigers  springing 
up  from  the  roof  all  about  them.  The  ornate 
roof,  of  yellow  and  green  porcelain,  was 
beautiful. 

I  was  alone.  The  day  was  Indian  summer. 
As  far  as  I  could  see  over  the  hills  the  green 
slopes  swam  in  a  golden  ocean  of  autumn  sun- 
light. The  temple  was  silent — as  dumb  as  the 

146 


A  STRANGE  CEREMONY 

placid7the  calm  and  squint-eyed  Buddha  in  the 
wall  before  me.  Somewhere  a  bird  sounded 
incessantly,  with  little  rests  between  the  notes,  a 
sharp,  treble  tattoo  over  and  over  again.  It  was 
one  of  those  days  when  the  hush  in  a  sacred 
place,  as  in  a  prairie  graveyard,  seems  a  prod- 
uct of  the  golden  flush  of  the  landscape.  A 
little  vagrant  wind  came  rustling  around  the 
corner  of  the  colored  shrine,  scraped  a  knife- 
shaped  bell-tongue  against  the  rim  of  a  tiny 
temple  bell  in  competition  with  the  industrious 
bird,  and  then  left  off  as  though  discouraged 
with  the  effort. 

One  thought  and  one  thought  only  is  possible 
in  such  surroundings.  It  is  the  thought  of  hu- 
manity's age-old  hungry  reach  out  of  the  finite 
into  the  infinite.  The  one  thing  in  a  material 
world  worth-while  is  the  invisible,  the  inaudible, 
the  intangible.  The  thing  of  strongest  proof  is 
that  which  cannot  be  proved,  and  to  the  end  of 
time  Faith  stands  in  first  place,  not  Fact.  Let  a 
man  think  and  he  will  cease  to  see.  Let  him 
think  and  he  will  cease  to  hear.  Let  him  think 
and  he  will  let  off  contact  with  the  world.  For  if 
he  think  long  and  deeply  enough,  the  thing  he 
sees  and  the  thing  he  hears  and  that  which  he 
touches  become  gross  fictions,  and  that  which  he 
cannot  know  becomes  alone  true  knowledge. 

147 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

In  a  workaday  world  people  kick  this  proposi- 
tion out  of  their  way  a  good  deal.  The  man 
who  is  slacking  about  in  the  eddies  of  ambition, 
or  beating  his  way  through  to  a  fortune  with  a 
club,  or  riding  the  cyclone  of  a  great  passion  of 
any  kind  naturally  doesn't  see  much  in  it  at  the 
time,  but  when  he  flips  the  pages  of  the  book  of 
life  under  his  thumb  and  looks  at  the  last  page 
to  see  how  the  plot  comes  out,  as  most  of  us  do 
sometimes,  he  always  runs  against  the  brutal 
fiction  of  Death.  No  one  who  is  rational  has 
ever  accepted  death  for  the  truth.  As  a  fact,  it 
meets  every  requirement  of  the  true  and  sen- 
sible avouch  of  the  senses  (Horatio's  test)  but 
as  a  truth  it  is  a  rank  masquerading,  four- 
flushing  imposter. 

The  long,  warm  flushes  of  the  waning  after- 
noon shifted  slowly  on  the  green  and  yellow 
roof  and  lighted  up  the  emerald  eyes  of  a  red 
dragon  with  a  white,  unbroken  egg  in  his  fangs. 

Here  every  year  come  a  string  of  devotees 
who  have  rejected  living  and  are  on  a  dogged 
search  for  life.  They  are  Chinese.  They  have 
come,  by  accident,  as  the  rest  of  us  come  into 
the  world,  and,  unlike  most  of  us,  into  a  world 
that  is  almost  wholly  a  struggle  to  survive  to 
the  next  meal.  Hunger  is  an  inconvenience 
with  the  west.  It  is  a  grand,  insatiable  passion 
with  the  east.  There  are  forty  thousand  char- 

148 


A  STRANGE  CEREMONY 

acters  in  the  Chinese  dictionary.  I  doubt  if 
there  is  one  which  stands  for  "enough."  The 
Chinese,  most  of  them,  are  born  hungry,  live 
hungry  and  die  with  the  vision  in  their  eyes  of 
a  victualless  hell.  Food  is  the  one  considera- 
tion, the  alpha  and  omega  of  existence,  the 
mainspring  of  effort,  the  end  of  ambition.  We 
have  many  refinements  which  obscure  bread  and 
butter.  No  Chinese  ever  loved  or  hated,  or  lost 
himself  in  the  joys  of  invention  or  reveled  in 
the  passions  of  intrigue,  that  there  was  not 
always  the  competitor,  Hunger,  knocking  about 
in  the  walls  of  his  stomach  and  insisting  jeal- 
ously on  a  division  of  his  interest.  We  give 
flowers  to  the  dead  in  America.  They  give  food 
to  the  oorpse  in  China. 

It  would  seem  that  in  China  the  first  word  in 
the  first  line  of  the  first  chapter  in  life  and  the 
last  would  be  to  eat.  And  yet  every  February  a 
string  of  novitiates  come  here  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  their  independence  of  Reality  and 
contempt  for  Death  and  his  chief  lieutenant — 
the  Gigantic  Lie — Pain. 

For  three  days  and  nights  they  sit  in  their 
dark  cells  and  wait  for  the  hour  when  they  shall 
demonstrate  that  the  senses  which  give  men  joy 
and  sorrow  are  to  be  put  away  as  trivialities 
and  beneath  the  notice  of  those  who  know  that 
the  physical  is  not  only  inferior  to  the  spiritual, 

149 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

but  in  the  bright  light  of  the  spirit  the  physical 
is  in  fact  non-existent,  that  Fact  is,  in  truth, 
fiction,  and  Faith  the  one  worth-while  proof  of 
living.  On  the  appointed  hour  these  Chinamen 
file  down  into  the  temple  and  kneel  in  the  dark 
on  little  benches.  The  big  bells  begin  to  hum  a 
rich  thunder.  The  candles  flicker  before  the 
placid  Buddha.  Acolytes  pass  among  the  kneel- 
ing figures  and  fix  on  the  head  of  each  six  little 
soft  cones  of  charcoal  and  incense.  These  are 
all  lighted  simultaneously.  They  burn  slowly 
down  to  the  shaven  heads.  The  burning  occu- 
pies a  half  hour.  All  the  time  the  big  bells  are 
humming  and  the  candles  glitter.  There  is  no 
sound,  save  this  and  the  mumbled  prayers  of  the 
devotees,  who  from  this  hour  forth  are  to  carry 
on  their  heads  nice  little  bare  spots  like  the  tops 
of  billiard  cues.  Now  these  are  superior  to  the 
senses.  They  have  planted,  for  once  at  least, 
their  feet  on  the  neck  of  Fact. 

The  Frenchman  who  had  brought  me  to  the 
temple  came  up  to  me.  I  knew  he  had  witnessed 
the  ceremony  last  February. 

"How  many  were  there?"  1  asked. 

"Eighty-four,"  he  said, 

"And  the  smell?'" 

*'It  was  really  not  bad,';  he  said, 


150 


THE  TEEMING  LIFE  OF  SZECHUAN 


XXIII 
CHINA'S  ENEMIES— DIRT  AND  GRAFT 

IF  you  should  put  it  to  a  vote  in  China,  the 
Chinese  would  declare  their  greatest  enemy 
to  be  Japan.  To  the  average  informed 
Chinese*  imagination,  Japan  is  a  dragon  circling 
around  China,  licking  its  chops  and  trying  to 
decide  where  to  bite  first.  While  I  have  come 
to  feel  that  Japan  is  laying  for  China,  and  I 
fancy  the  world  is  to  have  a  great  row  about  it 
and  that  the  United  States  is  liable  to  get  into 
it,  I  don't  think  Japan  is  China's  greatest  enemy. 
I  put  Dirt  and  Dishonesty  in  first  place. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  butt  into  a  situation 
that  is  four  thousand  years  old  with  a  bathtub 
and  a  failing  for  reform.  There  are  evidences 
a-plenty  that  China  has  managed  to  blunder 
along  in  the  midst  of  filth  for  a  long  time.  But 
it  has  survived  a  good  deal  as  the  buffalo  on  the 
prairies  survived  for  centuries.  There  was  no 
one  around  gunning  for  buffalo.  China  long 
was  safe  between  a  big  ocean  on  one  side  and  a 

151 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

savage  continent  on  the  other.  Now  the  ocean 
has  become  a  mere  ditch  pretty  much  at  present 
the  private  property  of  an  ambitious  pioneer — 
Japan — and  the  savage  continent  is  penetrated 
by  a  Russian  railroad.  Between  them  Japan 
and  Russia  contemplate  doing  various  things  to 
China,  and  China  can  come  out  of  it  something 
more  than  a  vassal  state  if  she  will  do  certain 
things. 

I  can  imagine  nothing  more  auspicious  for  the 
future  of  China  than  the  appearance  of  a 
leader,  divinely  inspired,  who  would  discover 
means  of  putting  down  Dirt  and  Dishonesty.  I 
don't  mean  that  he  should  entirely  eliminate 
them,  but  that  he  should  in  a  measure  reduce 
them  and  bring  them  under  a  reasonable  degree 
of  control. 

There  are  other  countries  which  are  dirty. 
Some  of  the  nations  of  Europe  specialize  in  dirt, 
but  no  one  knows  what  dirt  is  and  what  dirt  can 
be  until  he  comes  to  China.  Some  cities  are 
cleaner  than  others,  but  they  are  all  dirty,  and 
the  dirtiest  defy  description.  Only  in  China 
does  one  comprehend  what  the  hymn  writer 
meant  when  he  wrote  that  "every  prospect 
pleases  and  only  man  is  vile."  I  have  always 
liked  to  look  at  people.  When  I  wanted  to  enjoy 
myself  I  have  always  had  recourse  to  the  plan 

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CHINA'S  ENEMIES— DIRT  AND  GRAFT 

of  taking  a  seat  somewhere  and  just  watching 
people.  But  in  China  I  find  myself  hunting  just 
plain,  unadorned  scenery  for  relief. 

It's  the  dirt  that  gets  on  your  nerves.  It 
bubbles  up  from  the  pavements  and  oozes  out  of 
the  walls.  It  drips  from  the  eaves  and  streams 
out  of  the  earth.  It  stains  the  water  they 
drink  and  streaks  the  food  they  eat.  The 
clothes  some  of  them  wear  reek  with  it,  and 
the  beds  many  of  them  sleep  in  squirm  with  it. 
It  greets  the  baby  at  birth  and  kicks  the  aged 
into  the  grave  at  the  end. 

Now,  dirt  means  one  thing — disease.  Disease 
in  China  is  rampant.  There  are  no  vital  statis- 
tics in  China,  but  some  men  are  fairly  good 
guessers.  An  American  physician  who  has 
been  in  Chung-King  for  twenty-five  years  told 
me  that  at  least  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the 
population  die  in  infancy.  Dirt  claims  them  as 
its  own.  Dysentery  is  a  monster  in  this  part  of 
China.  It  mows  people  down  as  a  new-whetted 
scythe  cuts  sunflowers.  Every  white  man  in 
this  part  of  the  world  wears  a  flannel  band  over 
his  stomach  at  night  in  terror  of  it.  About 
half  the  fellows  say  there  is  nothing  in  the 
flannel  idea,  and  the  rest  contend  that  there  is, 
but  they  all  wear  them.  Smallpox  is  as  common 
as  colds  in  America.  It  is  just  as  malignant 

153 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

among  the  Chinese  as  anywhere  else  and  just 
as  fatal,  but  the  Chinese  name  it  "the  heavenly 
flower"  and  do  not  guard  against  it.  White 
people  vaccinate  and  keep  on  vaccinating  and 
escape.  Occasionally  some  white  man  comes 
along  who  doesn't  believe  in  vaccination.  He 
doesn't  last  long.  The  late  American  consul 
here,  a  young  man  from  Connecticut,  didn't 
vaccinate,  and  last  spring  he  died  a  terrible 
death.  Typhoid  takes  its  toll  also.  The 
Chinese,  who  are  in  a  measure  immune,  have  a 
lighter  form  than  occidentals,  but  the  occiden- 
tals largely  escape  it  by  inoculation.  Forms  of 
eczema,  cancer  and  leprosy  are  frequent.  Eye 
trouble  is  frightfully  prevalent.  Virtually  every- 
body has  intestinal  bacteria,  and  hookworm 
among  the  barefoot  is  universal. 

I  believe  that  if  China  lacks  physical  stamina 
this  tornado  of  disease  is  back  of  a  lot  of  it. 
You  see  many  splendidly  built  young  people  in 
China,  but  you  find  mighty  few  really  old  men, 
and  the  person  over  seventy  is  rare.  They  peter 
out  before  three  score  and  ten. 

China  is  building  up  an  army.  It  may  drill 
them  until  the  cows  come  home,  teach  them 
marksmanship  and  give  them  the  best  of  officers, 
but  unless  the  population,  from  which  the  sol- 
diers are  drawn,  is  protected  from  disease  the 

154 


CHINA'S  ENEMIES— DIRT  AND  GRAFT 

Chinese  army  in  any  serious  contest  isn't  going 
to  do  very  much. 

Now,  I  am  aware  that  physical  stamina  is  also 
dependent  on  mental  reactions,  and  you  could 
clean  up  China  and  yet  not  give  her  a  capable 
army.  There  is  another  thing  needed  in  China, 
and  that  is  for  someone  to  rise  up  and  baste 
squarely  between  the  eyes  official  dishonesty, 
which,  unless  it  is  curbed,  will  finish  off  the  new 
republic  without  the  necessity  of  outside  help. 

Traditionally  Chinese  have  been  commercially 
honest.  There  hasn't  been  much  that  is  ethical 
about  it.  The  Chinese  merchant  has  been  honest 
because  it  was  the  best  policy.  Officially  the 
Chinese  overlords  in  the  past  did  pretty  much 
as  they  pleased.  They  taxed  the  people,  and 
then  gave  up  to  the  central  government  just  as 
little  as  they  dared.  When  the  republic  came 
in  this  system  was  continued,  and  a  lot  of 
people  claim  that  it  has  grown  more  flagrant. 
In  any  event,  there  has  grown  up  in  China  a 
vicious  system  of  "squeeze." 

"Squeeze"  as  it  has  developed  in  China  is  not 
the  mere  creature  of  avarice  alone ;  it  is  in  part 
the  product  of  a  cunning  desire  to  do  the  other 
fellow  up  and  to  luxuriate  in  the  thought  that 
you  have  stung  him  good  and  hard.  As  between 
equals,  as  in  a  horse  trade,  the  game  may  not 

155 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

be  particularly  demoralizing.  If  the  other  fel- 
low gets  the  spavined  nag  off  on  you,  it  is  your 
look-out.  Between  a  superior  and  a  subordinate 
the  practice  becomes  vicious,  and  will  as  readily 
wreck  a  nation  as  it  will  a  firm  or  a  family. 

An  appalling  number  of  people  in  China  rec- 
ognize "squeezing"  as  legitimate,  and  defend  it. 
They  expect  their  servants  to  squeeze,  and  con- 
sequently they  participate  in  the  squeeze  them- 
selves by  underpaying  the  servants.  For  in- 
stance, a  man  has  a  head  servant  who  has  four 
assistants,  which  assistants  have  each  six  sub- 
ordinates. The  head  servant  will  withhold  ten 
per  cent,  of  the  assistants'  wages ;  the  assistants 
will  withhold  ten  per  cent,  of  the  subordinates' 
wages.  If  the  man  increases  the  wages,  the 
"hold-out"  increases  proportionately.  The 
squeeze  increases  in  percentage  with  the  amount 
of  money  in  sight.  This  practice  starts  with 
the  official  class.  It  can  tear  down  national  con- 
fidence, and  unless  it  is  stopped  it  may  wreck 
China. 

Early  America  stopped  counterfeiting  by 
making  the  penalty  death.  A  few  heads  of 
officials  lopped  off  would  probably  put  a  stop  to 
the  "squeeze"  in  China.  In  all  events,  it  would 
moderate  it. 


156 


xxiy 

THE  WAY  OF  CHINESE  BANDITS 

I    WATCHED  a  party  of  missionaries  set- 
ting out  for  Cheng-tu.    First  there  were 
fifty  soldiers,  then  a  couple  of  chairs  con- 
taining the  missionaries,  each  carried  by  four 
men,  then  a  cavalcade  of  ten  men  loaded  with 
goods.    Everybody  here  says,  "What  will  the 
bandits  say  to  that?"    For  the  bandits  between 
Chung-King  and  Cheng-tu  have  broken  out,  and 
they  are  raising  blue  blazes. 

It  started  with  the  British  consul  at  Cheng-tu. 
On  his  way  down  to  Chung-King  the  bandits 
attacked  him  to  his  great  affront.  Then  the 
bandits  carried  away  a  couple  of  Canadian 
women  and  robbed  them  of  seven  hundred  dol- 
lars. This  was  about  a  week  ago,  and  since 
then  the  bandits  have  been  taking  pot  shots  at 
nearly  every  one  who  has  gone  that  way.  The 
foreign  consuls  refuse  to  grant  passports  any 
longer,  but  in  some  way  these  missionaries  per- 
suaded the  Chinese  general  to  give  them  a 

157 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

military    escort    for    their    special    protection. 

The  missionaries  sailed  away  with  a  look  in 
their  faces  that  seemed  to  indicate  that  they 
weren't  dead  sure  whether  the  soldiers  conduct- 
ing them  were  bandits  or  not. 

For  the  bandit  proposition  in  this  part  of 
China  is  certainly  a  complicated  business.  When 
it  comes  to  regular,  three-ply  irregularity  these 
Chinese  bandits  could  give  the  Mexican  variety 
cards  and  spades.  Sometimes  a  Chinese  bandit 
is  a  soldier,  sometimes  he  is  a  citizen  and  some- 
times he  is  both  at  the  same  time. 

Yuan  Shih  Kai,  who  tried  to  turn  China  into  a 
monarchy,  is  responsible  for  most  of  it.  The 
generals  in  Szechuan  didn't  know  whether  to 
follow  Yuan  or  to  fight  him.  But  the  generals 
in  the  next  State,  Yunnan,  decided  to  scrap  him 
and  his  monarchy  idea,  and  they  sent  an  army 
up  to  help  this  bunch  make  up  its  mind.  Then 
Yuan  sent  his  army  out  from  Peking  to  help 
persuade  them  his  way.  So,  while  Yuan  died 
and  his  monarchy  scheme  deflated,  Szechuan, 
before  the  summer  was  over,  found  itself  en- 
tertaining three  armies.  After  it  was  all  over 
the  Yunnan  army,  which  was  for  the  republic, 
started  home,  the  Peking  army  also  headed  back 
to  Peking,  and  the  home  army  prepared  to  settle 
down  to  a  life  of  peace  again.  Now,  armies,  if 

158 


THE  WAY  OF  CHINESE  BANDITS 

well  organized,  can  move  around  without  much 
trouble.  But  an  army  that  has  to  take  care  of 
itself  must  pick  its  way.  Pay  isn't  always 
forthcoming,  and  food  gets  scarce.  This  was 
the  experience  of  a  lot  of  the  Yunnanese  troops. 
They  rushed  up  to  Szechuan  and  saved  the 
Chinese  republic,  but  they  weren't  paid  regu- 
larly and  some  of  them  not  at  all.  They  had 
to  eat,  so  it  became  necessary  for  whole  regi- 
ments duly  under  generals  to  seize  towns  and 
help  themselves.  This  worked  so  well  that 
whole  companies  detached  themselves  from  the 
regular  army  and  went  into  the  hold-up  business 
in  earnest.  It  seemed  to  pay.  It  wasn't  a  very 
soldierly  thing  to  do,  and  there  was  some  talk 
about  a  soldier's  right,  after  he  had  quit  the 
army  and  become  a  bandit,  to  take  his  gun 
along.  But  the  soldier-bandit  answered  that,  all 
right.  He  simply  kept  the  gun  for  pay  and  let 
it  go  at  that.  Now,  a  bandit  never  has  and  never 
will  work  in  an  unfriendly  neighborhood.  Some- 
body is  liable  to  get  rude  and  plug  him  in  the 
back.  So  when  one  cf  these  bands  of  soldier- 
bandits  occupied  a  neighborhood  they  forced 
citizens  to  join  their  ranks.  That  will  explain 
why  some  bandits  are  in  uniform  and  armed 
with  modern  rifles  and  why  some  are  in  cotton 
gowns  armed  with  hoes. 

159 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

I  talked  to  a  man  who  had  been  captured  by 
bandits.  They  marched  him  up  a  hill  and  put 
him  in  a  pen  guarded  by  a  lot  of  men  with  hoes. 
During  the  night  the  bandits  grew  confidential 
and  told  the  captive  their  story  and  begged  him 
to  use  his  influence  to  get  them  pardoned.  They 
didn't  want  to  get  on  the  government  payroll,  as 
they  could  if  they  had  guns,  but  merely  to  es- 
cape with  their  necks. 

It  follows,  in  such  a  state  of  affairs,  that  the 
man  with  a  uniform  and  a  gun  has  the  edge  on 
the  plain,  garden  variety  of  brigand. 

There  are  two  fields  for  bandit  activity.  The 
main  roads  of  travel  are  two.  One  is  the  over- 
land route  between  Chung-King  and  Cheng-tu. 
This  road  is  a  stone  pavement  about  five  feet 
wide,  and  it  runs  through  graveyards,  rice  fields, 
villages  and  mountain  passes.  It  is  the  road 
everybody  here  takes  on  the  way  to  Thibet  and 
the  Himalaya  mountains.  Therefore  it  is 
pretty  well  traveled.  The  other  route  is  the  Min 
river,  which  flows  past  Cheng-tu  to  the 
Yangtse.  Everybody  returning  from  Cheng-tu 
to  Chung-King  uses  the  river.  No  one  uses  it 
going  out.  The  Min  river  is  not  navigable  to 
steam  vessels.  Junks  alone  are  used.  So  the 
bandits  operate  upon  the  people  who  are  going 
up  the  Cheng-tu  road  in  chairs  or  coming  down 

16Q 


THE  WAY  OF  CHINESE  BANDITS 

the   busy   Min   river   in   long   lines    of   junks. 

No  one  likes  to  be  held  up.  And  no  white 
man  or  woman  can  stand  being  held  up  by  a 
Chinaman.  It  adds  insult  to  injury.  You  can 
appreciate  the  feeling  of  the  British  consul  at 
Cheng-tu  when  he  arrived  boiling  over  the 
indignity. 

He  was  coming  down  the  Min  river  at  the 
head  of  a  long  line  of  junks.  He  was  snoozing 
under  the  cover  of  the  junk  when  the  bandits 
let  loose  from  the  banks.  Operating  a  junk  on 
the  Min  river  is  equivalent  to  walking  a  tight 
rope  in  wooden  shoes.  It  is  dangerous  in  the 
extreme.  The  stream  is  rapid  and  rocky  and 
the  boat  is  brought  through  by  a  man  who 
stands  on  the  prow  with  a  bamboo  pole  and 
shoves  the  boat  off  the  rocks  as  it  plunges 
down  stream;  and  plunges  is  the  word,  for  the 
least  mistake  by  the  gentleman  with  the  bamboo 
pole  would  mean  ordinarily  a  quick  and  wet 
death  to  all  on  board. 

When  the  bandits  turned  loose  on  the  junk 
the  poleman  on  the  Consul's  junk  quit.  A  China- 
man hates  lead,  and  this  Chinaman  didn't  want 
to  accumulate  any.  So  he  ducked.  And  when 
he  ducked  the  junk  went  crosswise  of  the  cur- 
rent and  shot  on  to  certain  destruction.  The 
Consul  got  up  and  told  what  he  thought  of  all 

m 


SOCIETY,  POLITICS  AND  BRIGANDAGE 

Chinese,  and  this  Chinese  in  particular,  and 
ordered  him  to  get  to  work  with  the  pole  again. 
But  the  Chinese  wouldn't  do  it.  He  negotiated. 
He  explained  that  if  he  got  out  there  with  that 
pole  he  wouldn't  last  as  long  as  a  pie  at  a  picnic. 
But  he  suggested  to  the  British  consul  that,  as 
the  Chinese  respected  foreigners,  it  might  save 
the  day  if  the  British  consul  would  step  out  in 
front  under  fire  and  let  the  bandits  see  him. 
They  might  stop  when  they  saw  who  it  was — 
a  white  man.  As  the  junk  was  caroming  around 
like  a  grain  of  popcorn  over  a  hot  fire,  it  was  up 
to  the  consul  to  go  out  there  and  turn  the  bul- 
lets away  with  his  prestige.  It  wasn't  a  pleas- 
ant thing  to  do.  On  occasions  like  this  the  light 
is  likely  to  be  uncertain  or  the  eyesight  of  the 
shooters  poor.  It  may  read  all  right  in  the 
magazines  stories  for  a  man  to  step  out  in  front 
of  a  lot  of  wild  men  and  say,  "Don't  shoot.  It 
is  I —  a  white  man."  It  may  be  all  right  in  ro- 
mance, but  it  is  a  hard  thing  to  do  actually. 

But  the  Consul  did  it.  He  figured  the  chance 
of  getting  shot  was  less  than  that  of  being 
wrecked  on  the  rocks,  and  he  stepped  out  in 
front  and  pushed  his  way  through  the  rain  of 
bullets.  And  it  worked  like  magic.  The  bandits 
dropped  that  junk  like  a  hot  potato.  But  they 
riddled  the  junks  which  followed,  stopped  them 

162 


THE  WAY  OF  CHINESE  BANDITS 

and  robbed  everybody  aboard  of  their  belongings. 
As  I  said,  when  the  Consul  reached  Chung- 
King  he  was  hot.  The  consuls  all  got  together 
and  framed  up  a  sizzling  protest  to  the  Peking 
government.  They  demanded  that  the  bandit 
business  be  suppressed.  We  Anglo-Saxons  can 
always  pass  resolutions. 


163 


XXV 
LAND  AND  DEMOCRACY 

TO  my  mind  the  young  Chinese  Republic 
has  two  basic  advantages.  The  first  of 
these  is  a  fairly  equitable  disposition  of 
land  holdings  and  the  second  is  the  essential 
democracy  of  this  people.  Both  are  important 
foundation  stones  for  a  sound  republic. 

The  final  expression  of  freedom,  materially 
considered,  is  the  secure  possession  of  a  home 
with  enough  ground  around  it  to  yield  subsist- 
ence to  its  occupants.  The  undoubted  infringe- 
ment on  freedom  which  all  men  should  fear  is  an 
invasion  of  this  condition.  The  last  twist  in  the 
rope  of  control  any  aristocracy  gives  a  people  is 
a  monopoly  in  land. 

China  is  comparatively  free  from  the  land 
problem.  The  new  Republic  has  its  big  land- 
lords and  its  millions  of  tenants,  but  the  gen- 
eral aspect  of  the  country  is  one  of  a  multitude 
of  small  householders.  They  do  not  produce  to 
sell,  but  to  live,  and  yet  the  ground  and  the 

164 


LAND  AND  DEMOCRACY 

product  of  it  is  their  own.    The  reason  for  the 
survival  of  this  widely  distributed  ownership  is 
manifold  and  in  part  curious.  Patriarchy,  which 
survived  in  the  East  and  went  to  smash  in  the 
West,  enters  into  the  proposition.    In  the  days 
of  Isaac  and  Jacob,  land  descended  to  the  tribe. 
Probably   Israel   inherited   the   plan   from   the 
Orient,  but  Israel  which  handed  its  laws  and 
ethics  down  to  the  West,  did  not  transmit  its 
scheme  of  inheritance.     The  idea  did  persist, 
however,  in  China,  and  the  clan  and  the  family 
held  and  hold  the  fee  in  realty.    The  proposition 
was  further  insured  by  ancestor  worship,  for  a 
Chinaman  is  tied  to  the  graves  of  his  forebears. 
Everything  of  a  spiritual  kind  makes  him  physi- 
cally stationary.    The  family  idea  has  reached 
degrees   of   development   that  are   surprising. 
The  most  intere^ng  figures  in  China  are  the 
old  patriarchs  one  seas  every  day,  seated  some- 
times on  the  city  wall,  sometimes  in  the  door- 
way, wizen,  spectacled,  with  sparse  chin  whisk- 
ers and  showing  always  an  inscrutable  placidity, 
looking  wiser  than  it  is  humanly  possible  for 
anybody  ever  to  be.    It  would  do  no  good  to  ac- 
cuse them  of  anything,  for  they  wouldn't  take 
the  trouble  to  deny  it.     In  the  West  old  age 
prints  in  the  faces  of  men  a  confession  of  de- 
feat and  surrender;  in  the  East  it  writes  in  the 

165 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

wrinkles  around  the  eyes  of  the  the  ancients 
an  ode  to  victory  and  sets  thereon  the  seal  of 
authority.  More  frequently  than  not  the  whole 
village,  not  to  say  good-sized  town,  is  inhabited 
by  all  of  the  same  name.  The  old  man  of  the 
family  is  not  only  the  father  of  the  whole  ag- 
gregation, but  he  is  its  civil  governor  and  its 
magistrate.  He  settles  disputes  and  does  away 
with  the  necessity  of  both  judge  and  lawyer. 
This  condition  likewise  has  made  for  a  perpetua- 
tion of  a  given  calling  in  families.  A  Chinese 
farmer  has  no  trouble  on  his  hands  on  the  score 
of  the  city's  lure  for  his  sons.  They  are  born 
farmers  and  they  will  die  farmers,  as  their  an- 
cestors have  before  them  for  centuries.  This 
permanency  of  vocation  has  been  further 
cinched  by  the  absence  of  a  money  system  in 
China  worthy  the  name.  The  mortgage  until 
lately  has  had  little  part  in  the  agriculture  of 
the  country  because  interest  rates  have  been 
prohibitive.  The  Chinese  farmers  have  main- 
tained among  themselves  for  hundreds  of  years 
a  form  of  farm  credit. 

The  head  man  of  a  village  could  call  the  head 
men  of  other  villages  together  and  get  a  small 
loan.  The  expenditure  of  this  borrowed  money 
was  under  the  closest  surveillance  of  the  lenders 
— the  secret,  by  the  way,  of  all  successful  farm 

166 


LAND  AND  DEMOCRACY 

credit  schemes.  But  money  was  not  frequently 
borrowed.  A  singular  absence  of  a  comprehen- 
sive currency  has  put  money  in  a  subordinate 
place  in  China.  The  system  is  complicated.  The 
bulk  of  the  business  is  conducted  in  copper  or 
brass  "cash,"  the  money  with  the  square  holes. 
There  are  at  times  as  many  as  3,200  cash  in  a 
gold  dollar.  Cash  goes  down  in  value  as  silver 
goes  up.  Now  Chinese  silver  is  open  to  sus- 
picion. Formerly  each  province  issued  its  own 
silver  dollars.  Frequently  the  man  who  minted 
the  dollars  put  in  a  grosser  metal  and  pocketed 
most  of  the  real  silver.  No  Chinaman  accepts  a 
silver  dollar  without  testing  it.  He  balances  the 
coin  on  his  forefinger  and  tinkles  it.  If  it  sounds 
right  he  accepts  it.  Some  money  he  will  not 
take  at  all.  A  Mexican  dollar,  current  at  Shang- 
hai, cannot  be  passed  at  all  in  Szechuan.  A 
Szechuan  dollar,  good  in  Chung-King,  is  no  good 
in  Shanghai.  This  is  the  result  of  dishonest 
mintage.  Now  the  necessities  of  honesty  cause 
a  curious  complication.  The  Chinese  have  what 
they  call  a  "tael."  It  is  not  a  coin.  It  is  a  unit 
of  measurement.  A  man  buys  a  water  buffalo 
for  twenty  taels  (say  $10  gold.)  He  doesen't 
pay  out  twenty  pieces  of  money,  but  he  hands 
over  so  many  hunks  of  silver  (called  shoes),  the 
weight  of  which  makes  twenty  taels.  You  say 

167 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

this  is  not  very  complicated.  All  right.  This 
is  complicated.  Silver  is  not  all  of  the  same  fine- 
ness. A  hunk  of  silver  may  be  worth  five  taels, 
but  if  a  man  who  had  sold  five  taels  of  rice  took 
his  hunks  of  silver  to  buy  five  taels  worth  of 
silk  his  hunk  would  be  turned  down,  because  a 
rice  tael  is  not  as  fine  in  silver  as  a  silk  tael. 
This  intricacy  runs  all  through  Chinese  com- 
merce. That  it  results  in  an  embargo  on  easy 
trading  is  obvious,  and  that  it  has  helped  to 
keep  the  simple  Chinese  farmer  out  of  the 
notion  of  borrowing  there  is  no  doubt.  Farm 
credit  banks  have  now  been  started  in  China, 
and  in  time  China  must  come  to  a  simple  and 
honest  money  system.  And  eventually  the 
Chinese  farmer  may  "buck  the  tiger"  of  interest 
charge  on  easy  loans,  but  he  hasn't  done  so  yet, 
and  his  failure  to  run  his  plow-share  through 
the  vaults  of  the  local  bankers  has  had  a  world 
to  do  with  the  circumstance  that  in  the  distri- 
bution of  land  among  the  tillers  of  it  the  new 
Chinese  Republic  is  in  pretty  good  shape. 

There  is  something  similar  in  the  factors  which 
have  kept  China  in  its  most  imperial  days  essen- 
tially democratic.  Had  China  had  a  more  scien- 
tific and  compact  government  she  would  have 
had  less  democracy.  Indeed,  if  China  had  en- 
joyed over  any  considerable  period  great  pros- 

168 


LAND  AND  DEMOCRACY 

perity  she  would  have  been  less  democratic.  But 
she  has  always  been  loosely  governed  and  appa- 
rently she  has  always  been  wretchedly  poor.  In 
China  more  than  in  any  country  in  the  world, 
past  or  present,  it  is  a  positive  disadvantage  to 
be  rich  or  rather,  to  indulge  in  the  fantastic 
antics  which  so  often  follow  as  the  prerogative 
of  wealth.  The  wise  man  in  China  who  gets 
wealth  doesn't  indulge  in  a  manner  of  living 
which  advertises  his  riches.  If  he  does  a  good 
many  people,  officially  and  unofficially,  will  be 
after  his  pelf.  It  is  an  essential  point  in  the 
game  of  accumulation  in  China  to  be  secretive 
about  it.  However,  the  number  of  rich  men 
known  and  unknown  in  China  is  comparatively 
few.  The  country  has  resisted  those  modern  de- 
vices which  produce  wealth  so  quickly  and  con- 
centrate it  into  the  hands  of  the  few  so  neatly. 
The  big  corporations,  the  big  factory,  the  com- 
bination in  restraint  of  trade  have  had  little  to 
do  with  the  evolutions  of  society  here.  The 
Chinese  are  organized  into  guilds  without  num- 
ber, but  these  guilds  are  largely  protective. 
They  are  not  by  nature  aggressive  and  preda- 
tory. Therefore,  as  China  has  neither  produced 
nor  concentrated  wealth,  a  known  plutocracy  is 
not  part  of  the  new  Republic's  problems.  Nor 
does  the  old  Manchu  aristocracy  constitute  an 

169 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

impediment.  It  did  not  touch  the  life  of  the  av- 
erage Chinese  in  the  days  of  its  power.  In  its 
decline  its  prestige  has  petered  out,  and  even 
if  the  republic  should  sink  and  a  monarchy  rise 
in  its  place  it  will  not  be  the  old  dynasty. 

For  these  reasons  there  is  in  China  the  ground- 
work of  a  real  democracy  ready  made.  It  is  the 
creature  of  the  absence  of  excessive  govern- 
ment and  at  the  same  time  security  in  land 
holdings.  Under  the  direction  of  government 
and  the  security  of  property  and  person  under 
government  a  great  and  powerful  republic  can 
be  built.  And  the  task  will  be  immeasurably 
more  easy,  because  this  same  absence  of  govern- 
ment has  left  undisturbed  in  the  country  the 
ancient  but  advantageous  system  of  widely  dis- 
tributed land  holdings. 


170 


XXVI 
CARAVANS  FROM  THIBET 

THERE  is  no  more  curious  thing  in  life 
than  the  vague  origin  of  lasting  impres- 
sions. When  I  was  a  boy  there  hung  on 
the  wall  of  my  bed-room  a  chromo  showing  a 
caravan  of  camels  moving  across  a  desert.  Ever 
since  I  first  saw  it,  I  have  had  a  weakness  for 
curios.  Let  me  figure  it  out  for  you.  That  camel 
caravan  was  coming  from  somewhere  and  it  was 
laden  with  something.  The  picture  did  not  re- 
veal where  or  what.  But  as  a  boy  I  spent  many 
a  serious  five  minutes  over  the  question.  In  the 
course  of  time  I  decided  that  the  caravan  came 
from  Central  Asia  and  that  it  was  laden  with 
much  spoil.  That  spoil  had  to  be  ancient,  orien- 
tal, mysterious  and  rare.  What  it  was,  its 
shape,  nature,  value,  I  was  unable  to  guess.  But 
wondering  about  it  eventually  gave  me  a  weak- 
ness about  ancient  and  rare  things.  It  has  al- 
ways been  difficult  for  me  to  get  by  a  pawn- 
broker's window.  I  had  the  curio  hunter's  bug 

171 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

(that  a  discovery  is  about  to  be  made)  hard  and 
I  had  it  early. 

I  had  nearly  outgrown  it,  when  I  struck 
Chung-King.  Then  the  old  camel  caravan  voo- 
doo began  working  again.  For  here  is  one  of 
the  places  to  which  the  caravans  from  Central 
Asia  come  down,  and  here  they  dump  their  car- 
goes of  curios.  I  have  gone  through  one  of 
these  shipments,  and  the  transaction  satisfied  a 
longing  I  had  had  since  I  first  met  that  chromo. 

It  is  a  hard,  steep  road  from  Chung-King  to 
Thibet,  the  roof  of  the  world.  It  is  up,  up,  up, 
from  one  range  of  mountains  to  another.  But 
men  travel  it,  as  they  travel  everywhere.  And 
while  it  is  not  possible  to  reach  Lhassa  from  this 
side  (it  is  forbidden  to  enter  the  sacred  city 
from  China,  apparently  not  from  India)  men  do 
journey  from  Chung-King  over  into  the  heart  of 
Asia. 

The  white  men  who  make  the  trip  from  this 
point  are  Frenchmen  and  I  had  a  long  talk  with 
two  of  them  about  it.  They  told  me  that  the 
Thibetans  are  not  Chinese;  that  they  are  big, 
strong  men  with  corded  muscles  and  shaggy 
heads.  They  are  dirty  beyond  the  power  of  tell- 
ing, dirtier  than  the  dirtiest  of  Chinese  and  im- 
moral to  depths  beyond  the  most  infamous  thing 
the  white  man  knows.  In  the  high  altitudes 

172 


CARAVANS  FROM  THIBET 

they  are  heavily  clad,  and  at  night  they  sleep 
around  the  fire  in  sitting  postures.  Their  meat 
is  wild.  Their  potatoes  (Irish)  are  larger  than 
those  grown  anywhere  in  the  world.  They  are 
heavy  eaters.  Their  dogs  are  big  and  woolly 
like  Newfoundlands  and  have  China  blue  eyes. 
They  brought  a  dog  along.  The  eyes  are  odd, 
and  no  mistake. 

With  the  two  Frenchmen  I  went  through 
the  curios  they  had  brought  down  out  of  this 
mysterious  land.  First  were  the  bronze  and 
gold  plated  gods.  These  were  all  Buddhas.  One 
was  over  two  thousand  years  old,  a  symbol 
of  an  early  form  of  religion  which  only  scholars 
now  talk  about  among  themselves.  The  god  in 
this  case  has  the  head  of  a  bull  and  the  body  of 
a  man.  He  had  twenty-four  legs  and  thirty 
arms.  The  figure  was  of  bronze.  Another  god, 
in  a  collection  of  fifty  or  more,  was  a  gold-plated 
Buddha  with  a  succession  of  six  jeweled  heads, 
one  on  top  of  the  other,  the  whole  figure  stand- 
ing over  four  feet  high.  Another  Buddha  had 
the  head  of  an  elephant.  Across  the  bronze 
trunk,  some  vandal  of  a  forgotten  day  had 
slashed  his  sword,  probably  to  examine  the 
metal,  in  the  hope  of  finding  silver  or  gold.  Of 
course,  these  Buddhas  had  been  stolen  from 
temples.  What  the  travelers  had  given  for  them 

173 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

I  couldn't  find  out — but  probably  a  good  deal,  for 
ancient  things  like  these  are  not  picked  up 
cheaply  anywhere.  Most  of  the  Buddhas  are  of 
a  kind  that  would  prevent  their  public  exhibi- 
tion outside  of  museums. 

Next  came  the  silk  scrolls  or  tapestries — 
embroidered  and  painted  curtains.  The  paint- 
ings are  of  Buddhas  in  brilliant  reds  and  blues 
and  yellows,  the  rich,  vivid  pigments  showing 
bright  against  the  ancient  fabrics,  which  are  of 
a  finer  weave  than  is  manufactured  anywhere 
today,  and  to  the  touch  as  soft  as  down.  How 
old  these  tapestries  are  the  Frenchmen  did  not 
know,  but  they  must  have  been  made  many  cen- 
turies ago.  The  manner  of  weave,  the  imperish- 
able dyes,  to  say  nothing  of  the  symbolic  mean- 
ing of  the  paintings  and  embroideries,  are  lost 
to  mankind.  Along  with  these  tapestries  were 
large  posters  made  of  paper  in  a  most  peculiar 
way.  One  was  the  figure  of  a  priest  of  heroic 
size.  It  was  made  of  strips  of  colored  paper, 
each  strip  being  about  an  eight  of  an  inch  wide. 
These  strips  were  crossed  and  criss-crossed  in 
a  flat  braid  with  the  colors  so  arranged  that  the 
figure  of  the  priest  in  colors  resulted.  I  realize 
that  I  haven't  described  it  accurately.  As  nearly 
as  I  can  tell  it  was  a  paper  mosaic.  I  had  never 
seen  anything  like  this  before  and  I  never  heard 

174 


CARAVANS  FROM  THIBET 

any   one   describe   such   a   thing  in   any   way. 

The  Frenchmen  also  brought  down  from  the 
ancient  land  much  fine  porcelain — some  very 
white,  some  ox-blood  red  and  some  brilliantly 
blue.  They  made  much  of  these  vessels,  but  as 
I  am  clearly  at  sea  on  the  subject  of  ceramics  I 
could  not  work  up  much  interest  except  in  two 
objects.  One  of  these  was  a  very  large  green 
pitcher  of  jade — a  precious  stone  which  is  used 
as  settings  in  rings  in  the  Orient.  The  green 
pitcher,  evidently  part  of  the  equipment  of  an 
altar,  was  the  biggest  piece  of  jade  I  have 
ever  seen,  and,  of  course,  was  priceless,  probably 
the  richest  find  of  the  explorers.  The  other  ob- 
ject was  a  coffin  made  of  porcelain.  This  was 
about  four  feet  long  and  eighteen  inches  wide 
— evidently  for  a  child — and  highly  ornamented. 

Besides  these  curios,  the  travelers  had  picked 
up  several  ancient  swords,  the  hilts  and  scab- 
bards of  which  were  studded  with  turquoise,  the 
most  commonly  used  jewel  in  Thibet. 

There  were,  too,  incense-burners  of  bronze 
without  number  and  an  ancient  Thibetan  kettle 
which  caught  my  eye.  This  kettle  was  a  large, 
graceful  vessel,  on  Persian  lines.  It  was  of  highly 
polished  copper,  heavily  incrusted  with  silver.  Its 
spout  was  a  long,  curved  affair  and  its  handle 
as  delicately  wrought  as  a  high-priced  ear-ring. 

175. 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

The  Frenchmen  who  had  corraled  all  these 
things  purpose  to  dispose  of  them  to  museums 
in  Europe.  They  didn't  know  about  my  early 
chromo  experience,  but  they  were  infinitely  pa- 
tient with  me  while  I  examined  each  object. 

But  not  until  the  last  did  I  get  my  real  thrill. 
What  I  had  seen  and  what  I  have  described  were 
ancient,  oriental  and  rare — just  the  things  my 
chromo  camels  were  laden  with,  no  doubt — but 
there  was  nothing  mysterious  about  any  of  it. 
And  I  wanted  something  mysterious.  And  I 
got  it. 

These  travelers  brought  down  from  Thibet  a 
lot  of  bronze  and  silver  bells.  They  are  the 
sweetest  toned  bells  I  have  ever  heard,  and  I 
was  jingling  them  around  like  a  real  Chautauqua 
bell-ringer — when  one  of  the  Frenchmen  held 
out  to  me  two  metal  concave  disks  about  three 
inches  in  diameter,  each  disk  fastened  to  the  end 
of  a  single  small  chain.  He  told  me  to  strike 
the  disks  together.  I  did  so  and  I  had  one  of  the 
surprises  of  my  life.  Imagine  the  purest  note 
Kreisler  ever  drew  from  his  violin,  or  Paderew- 
ski  ever  struck,  or  Melba  ever  reached  and  mul- 
tiply it  by  a  hundred  and  you  will  know  what  I 
heard — the  most  crystalline  pure  tone  that  ever 
sang  out  into  the  air.  It  was  high  and  yet  vel- 
vet, and  it  held  like  the  rising  note  of  a  flute  un- 

176 


CARAVANS  FROM  THIBET 

til  it  filled  the  whole  room  with  its  music.  Even 
the  blue-eyed  dog  looked  up  from  his  bone  and 
listened,  and  some  twittering  sparrows  at  the 
door  grew  silent.  It  seemed  to  challenge  all  na- 
ture by  its  perfection.  I  rang  it  again.  I  ex- 
amined it.  I  carried  it  into  open  air  and  tried 
it  there.  The  Frenchmen  were  just  as  excited 
about  it  as  I  was,  and  it  was  an  old  story  with 
them.  Was  it  the  metal,  or  the  shape,  or  the 
manner  of  casting  which  did  this  thing?  They 
didn't  know.  It  had  come  from  a  Thibetan  tem- 
ple. That  was  all  they  knew.  But  I  knew  that 
after  years  of  listening  to  singers  and  players, 
and  bands,  orchestras  and  graphophones,  I  had 
heard,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  the  perfect 
note. 


177 


xxvn 

WAGES  AND  LIVING  COSTS 

FREQUENTLY  you  will  hear  someone  in 
the  United  States  say  of  the  proprietor 
of  a  Chinese  laundry:  "When  he  makes 
a  thousand  dollars  he  will  return  to  China  and 
be  rich  the  rest  of  his  life."  Is  this  true?  Are 
the  conditions  of  living  in  America  and  China 
so  different  that  a  comfortable  balance  in  bank 
is  a  huge  fortune  in  China? 

The  answer  is  yes.  In  elaborating  on  the  cost 
of  living,  which  I  shall  do,  I  wish  you  would 
keep  in  mind  that  I  am  overstating  prices  in- 
stead of  understating  them,  not  because  I  want 
to  do  so,  but  because  I  can't  help  it.  No  white 
man  in  China  can  secure  the  same  price  quota- 
tions that  a  Chinese  can,  and  no  rich  Chinese  can 
get  the  same  quotations  as  a  poor  man.  The 
traffic  is  charged  what  it  win  bear. 

I  should  say  that  the  average  Chinese  work- 
man supports  a  family  of  six  on  a  dollar  a 
month.  I  will  use  gold  prices  entirely.  Now 

178 


WAGES  AND  LIVING  COSTS 

that  twelve  dollars  a  year  looks  impossible.  It 
isn't  in  China,  in  this,  the  second  year  of  the 
European  war,  with  prices  rising  everywhere  in 
the  Occident. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Chinese  workman  eats 
little  or  no  meat.  He  may  get  it  on  festival 
occasions,  but  day  in  and  day  out  he  has  no  ac- 
quaintance with  flesh.  He  lives  on  vegetables 
cooked  in  vegetable  oils,  the  oil  being  the  source 
of  his  fat.  The  fowl  which  he  has  occasionally 
he  raises  himself,  but  he  uses  it  sparingly.  He 
goes  slow  on  eggs,  too.  The  Chinese  eat  twice 
a  day. 

In  the  second  place,  Chinese  clothing  is  econ- 
omical beyond  belief.  A  workman's  suit  of  blue 
cotton  costs  about  fifty  cents.  His  sandals  will 
tax  him  four  cents  and  his  hat,  if  he  goes  in  for 
hats,  three  cents,  the  whole  outfit  coming  to 
something  like  sixty  cents.  Additional  clothing 
for  winter  will  raise  this  to  a  dollar.  I  would 
double  this  figure  for  his  wife's  outfit. 

In  the  matter  of  furniture,  an  investment  of 
a  dollar  will  run  the  family  for  many  years.  I 
doubt  if  that  much  is  expended  by  the  average 
family.  Fuel  is  high  and  used  grudgingly.  Rent 
I  have  not  been  able  to  size  up.  It  is  necessarily 
next  to  nothing. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  I  am  describing 
179 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

a  part  of  China  where  the  climate  is  about  that 
of  central  Texas,  populated  by  a  people  the  ma- 
jority of  whom  have  no  drafts  upon  their  re- 
sources by  education,  fashion  or  lure  of  creature 
comfort.  The  single  big  consideration  in  life  to 
most  of  them  is  food.  It  is,  in  a  Chinese  way, 
wholesome  provender.  They  enjoy  it  immensely, 
and,  taken  generally,  the  men  are  sinewy,  strong 
and  physically  capable  and  the  women  fat  and 
roly-poly. 

In  conveying  to  you  prices  of  eatables  it  will 
be  necessary  for  me  to  explain  that  bushels  and 
pounds  do  not  exist  in  China,  and  I  have  had  to 
reduce  the  Chinese  measurements  to  ours  with 
some  difficulty.  Also  you  should  understand 
that  transactions  here  are  in  factions  of  a  six- 
teenth of  one  of  our  cents,  which  will  make  a 
difference.  And  finally  you  must  keep  in  mind 
that  the  prices  I  quote  are  those  of  the  deep 
interior  and  were  given  to  a  foreigner  and  are 
in  all  instances  overstated. 

Rice  (the  very  best  for  table  use),  2  cents  a 
pound. 

Potatoes  (Irish),  2  1-2  cents  a  pound. 

Sweet  potatoes,  12  cents  a  peck. 

Tomatoes,  2  1-2  cents  a  pound. 

Egg  plant,  1  cent  each. 

Cabbage,  1  cent  each. 

180 


WAGES  AND  LIVING  COSTS 

String  beans,  2  cents  a  pound. 

Cucumbers,  1-2  cent  each. 

Spinach,  1 1-2  cents  a  basket. 

Carrots,  2  1-2  cents  a  pound. 

Green  peppers,  1  cent  for  half  peck. 

Pumpkins,  2  cents  each. 

Peanuts,  4  cents  a  pound. 

Onions,  1 1-2  cents  a  pound. 

Oranges,  6  cents  a  dozen. 

Lemons  (imported),  $1  a  dozen. 

Lemons  (native),  25  cents  a  dozen. 

Wheat  flour,  $1.25  for  50  pounds. 

Eggs,  6  cents  a  dozen. 

Of  course,  this  list  calls  for  some  explanations. 
There  are  many  grades  of  rice,  and  the  bulk  of 
the  Chinese  do  not  use  the  best,  which  I  have 
quoted.  The  native  lemon  is  large,  larger  than 
an  orange.  It  is  not  so  good  as  the  California 
lemon,  which  the  Chinese  in  Szechuan  could 
easily  grow  if  somebody  started  it  for  them. 
Wheat  flour  is  as  I  have  given  it.  It  is  ground 
by  hand.  No  wheat  is  exposed  for  sale.  Most 
of  the  bread  eaten  is  in  the  shape  of  hot-cakes. 

Tea,  which  is  used  in  enormous  quantities, 
can  be  obtained  very  cheaply.  The  very  best — 
perfumed  with  jasmine  blossoms — sells  at  45 
cents  per  pound.  Coffee  is  not  used. 

This  closes  up  the  list  of  eatables  entering 
181 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

into  the  expenses  of  the  average  Chinaman  and 
brings  one  to  the  meat  situation.  The  richer 
Chinese  do  eat  meat,  and  they  have  a  picnic 
so  far  as  prices  are  concerned.  All  cuts  of 
beef  are  five  -cents  a  pound.  This  is  for  soup 
bones  as  well  as  roasts.  The  beef  is  really  ex- 
cellent— sweet  and  compact  and  well  butchered. 
Pork  is  from  three  to  four  cents  a  pound.  The 
Chinese  pig — invariably  the  Poland  China  breed 
— is  as  good  as  you  can  find  anywhere.  Mutton 
sells  for  five  cents  a  pound.  It  is  really  goat  and 
is  very  palatable.  Suet  is  seven  cents  a  pound 
and  lard,  which  is  expensive,  brings  eighteen 
cents  for  the  pound.  A  pair  of  calf  brains  cost 
thirteen  cents. 

It  is  really  in  the  domestic  and  wild  poultry 
field  that  China  shines.  I  don't  think  there  can 
be  any  place  on  earth  where  game  is  as  palatable 
as  it  is  in  this  part  of  China.  I  have  been  long 
a  specialist  on  wild  duck,  but  I  have  never  had 
such  duck.  I  don't  know  much  about  the  real 
cause,  but  I  suspect  that  the  ducks  feed  wholly 
on  celery  and  rice.  The  same  quality  holds  on 
domestic  fowl.  And  the  prices  are  stunning. 
Here  are  some  of  them. 

Chickens  (fries),  10  cents  each. 

Chickens  (full  sized),  15  cents  each. 

Ducks  (tame),  15  cents  each. 
182 


WAGES  AND  LIVING  COSTS 

Ducks  (wild),  10  cents  each. 

Squabs,  5  cents  each. 

Wild  Pigeons,  4  cents  each. 

Goose  (tame),  40  cents  each. 

Partridge,  10  cents  each. 

Quail,  5  cents  each. 

Woodcock,  10  cents  each. 

There  are  no  turkeys  and  I  saw  no  wild  geese 
for  sale.  While  there  are  lots  of  deer,  I  found 
no  venison.  Frog  legs  sell  for  a  cent  a  pair. 
The  ducks  are  teal  and  mallard.  Pheasants 
bring  forty  cents  each. 

Salt  in  China  is  sold  by  a  monopoly.  It  is 
very  high — eight  cents  a  pound.  Native  sugar, 
unrefined  (the  old  brown  kind),  brings  three 
cents  a  pound,  and  the  same  refined  is  sold  for 
six  cents.  Coal — and  China  is  full  of  it — it  just 
sticks  out  of  the  ground  everywhere  along  the 
Yangtse  sells  in  Chung-King  for  $4  a  ton.  Why, 
I  can't  make  out.  It  ought  to  be  less  than  a 
dollar.  Wood  is  very  high.  China  has  neg- 
lected her  forests  and  the  market  is  bulled  out 
of  sight  by  the  use  of  enormous  coffins.  Kero- 
sene is  forty-three  cents  a  gallon  and  gasoline 
fifty  cents. 

What  the  Chinese  pay  the  Chinese  workman 
I  could  not  find  out — the  wages  vary  too  much. 
Here,  however,  is  the  servant  list  of  one  white 

183 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

man's  home  which  I  picked  up.    It  can  .be  ac- 
counted exceedingly  high  as  a  wage  scale. 

Eight  chair  coolies,  $2.25  a  month  each. 

Water  coolie,  $2.25  a  month. 

House  coolie,  $2.50  a  month. 

No.  1  boy,  $8  a  month. 

Cook,  $10  a  month. 

Gardener,  $2.50  a  month. 

Watchman,  $3  a  month. 

Laundryman,  $6  a  month. 

Charwoman,  $1  a  month. 

Four  seamstresses,  $2.50  a  month  each. 

Some  people  at  home  bat  civilization  around 
a  good  deal  and  talk  about  it  being  a  failure. 
I  can  imagine  some  of  these  critics  over  in  China 
and  saying  to  me:  "Now,  what's  the  matter 
with  these  people  ?  They're  ignorant,  of  course, 
but  they  are  happy,  aren't  they  ?  And  they  are 
healthful,  too,  and  contented.  Why  disturb  all 
this  with  democratic  notions?  Why  burden 
them  with  education?  Why  organize  them  for 
higher  wages?  Why  introduce  foolish  clothes, 
and  style,  and  bathtubs,  and  an  appetite  for  of- 
fice and  a  whole  lot  of  foolish  things  that  a  re- 
publican form  of  government  is  sure  to  bring?" 
And  I  know  just  what  I  should  answer:  "The 
good  Lord  didn't  intend  that  happiness  should 
be  the  only  thing  in  this  world." 

184 


xxvm 

THE  ROAD  TO  CHENG-TU 

WHEN  I  was  a  boy  I  had  a  weakness  for 
a  time  for  reading  certain  books 
"through."  I  girded  up  my  loins  and 
attacked  the  Bible,  for  instance,  and  sailed  along 
famously  until  I  struck  that  "begat"  chapter, 
which  put  me  down  and  out  for  the  time  being. 
I  tackled  Baxter's  "All  Saints'  Rest."  I  waded 
through  "Don  Quixote."  I  demolished  E.  P. 
Roe's  "Barriers  Burned  Away."  The  next  book 
to  it  on  the  shelf  was  Tennyson."  I  jumped 
into  that.  Now,  the  first  poem  in  any  well- 
regulated  volume  of  Tennyson  is  "The  Lady  of 
Shalott."  The  poem  itself  is  a  paralyzer.  It 
isn't  long,  but  it  is  cryptic.  I  couldn't  make  out 
what  was  the  matter  with  the  lady.  So  I  read 
it  again.  But  I  was  as  much  up  in  the  air  as 
before.  It  was  plain  to  me  that  the  lady  was 
in  trouble,  but  I  couldn't  diagnose  it.  So  I  went 
through  it  a  third  time — again  without  result. 
Thereupon  I  passed  up  Tennyson.  But  the  poet 

185 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

left  me  an  image — the  image  of  a  road  along 
which  passed  a  procession  of  men  and  women, 
knight  and  lady,  yokel,  beggar,  squire,  actor,  all 
wending  their  way  into  the  mists  and  the  mys- 
teries of  the  world  over  the  hill  and  far  away. 
This  image  naturally  awakened  my  poetic  in- 
stincts, and  I  tried  the  formula  on  our  neigh- 
bourhood. It  didn't  work.  The  only  thing 
similar  to  this  procession  in  my  town  was  a 
daily  passenger  train.  It  flashed  by  with  such 
speed  and  with  so  little  opportunity  for  seeing 
the  passengers  that  I  quit.  Had  these  passen- 
gers only  walked,  I  might  have  been  a  poet. 

Nevertheless  I  have  always  kept  an  eye  out 
for  such  a  road  as  Tennyson  described.  I  found 
it  in  China.  It  is  the  road  from  Chung— King 
to  Cheng-tu.  It  awakened  no  poetic  instinct  in 
me,  but  it  was  a  source  of  never-failing  interest. 
I  perched  myself  on  the  battlements  and 
watched  the  cavalcade  below  me  as  it  wound  out 
of  Tung  Yuen  Men  (a  city  gate),  through  the 
endless  graveyard,  around  the  shabby,  jumbled 
groups  of  temples,  by  struggling  villages  and 
into  the  mouth  of  the  horizon  which  gobbled  it. 

Here  comes  the  panting  mail-carrier — bare- 
legged, rather  ragged,  too,  with  a  straw  hat  as 
broad  as  the  head  of  a  bass  drum.  Across  his 
shoulders  is  the  vibrating  bamboo  pole,  at  either 

186 


THE  ROAD  TO  CHENG-TU 

end  of  it  a  little  discolored  wad  of  mail.  He  has 
come  seventeen  miles,  the  last  relay  on  the  ten- 
day  journey  from  Cheng-tu.  He  pushes  wayfar- 
ers side  and  screams  at  others,  and  altogether 
is  a  tremendous  fellow  in  a  tremendous  hurry. 
He  gets  $3.50  a  month — a  detail  Tennyson  would 
have  overlooked. 

Just  back  of  him  is  a  group  of  frolicking 
children  headed  by  a  roly-poly  Chinese  girl  of 
ten.  She  has  a  feathered  wooden  ball — a  shut- 
tlecock— and  this  she  tosses  into  the  air  by 
striking  it  over  and  over  again  with  the  back 
of  her  heels,  first  one  heel  then  the  other.  All 
Chinese  children  play  this  way,  with  a  leg  agil- 
ity wonderful  to  behold. 

Next  appears  a  group  of  Chinese  soldiers  in 
dove-colored  cotton  uniforms — not  unlike  khaki 
— good  sturdy  fellows — frightfully  young — with 
visored  caps  and  above  the  visor  a  tinseled  star 
— signifying  nothing  but  merely  decoration. 
They  have  a  good  military  stride,  a  good  mili- 
tary air.  They  would  be  first-rate  soldiers,  too, 
if  you  could  take  away  from  them  the  belief  that 
the  man  who  makes  the  most  noise  wins. 

Now  follows  a  line  of  chairs,  the  bearers  shin- 
ing in  their  sweat  and  screaming  their  signals. 
All  the  chairs  are  carefully  closed.  There  are 
ladies  of  quality  in  the  chairs  and  they  are  not 

187 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

to  be  seen,  being  as  isolated  as  Tennyson's  lady 
herself.  The  lady  of  quality  in  China  is  the  only 
creature  in  China  who  dresses  in  splendor,  and 
then  she  cannot  show  off.  I  have  been  to  several 
big  entertainments  in  rich  Chinese  homes,  and 
they  show  me  all  the  children  but  the  No.  1  wife, 
never. 

There  are  other  women  to  see  along  the 
Cheng-tu  road,  however — women  of  less  import- 
ance, very  dumpy  women,  very  neat  in  their 
linen  trousers,  very  black  of  hair,  bobbing  along 
on  their  stumpy  feet  and  scarcely  bending  their 
knees  at  all,  like  boys  on  stilts.  Here  is  a  group 
of  them  in  single  file,  their  chubby  yellow  cheeks 
shaking  as  they  jolt  along. 

They  pass  a  file  of  blind  beggars — five  of  them 
— and  all  of  them  young  and  pretty  well  clad  and 
fairly  clean.  Each  has  a  Chinese  fiddle.  Here 
comes  a  noisy  caravan  of  coolies  loaded  with  a 
little  of  everything  imaginable — blankets,  beds, 
bureaus,  chairs,  musical  instruments,  crockery, 
tinware,  boxes,  bundles  and  what  not.  A  Chin- 
ese family  is  moving.  This  group  is  repeated 
scores  of  times,  day  in  and  day  out,  year  after 
year.  The  Chinese  are  always  moving.  I  won- 
der they  have  time  for  anything  else. 

But  the  row  of  coolies  with  shoulder  poles 
who  follow  do  not  belong  to  this  crowd.  Instead 

188 


THE  ROAD  TO  CHENG-TU 

they  are  bringing  chickens  to  market,  the  chick- 
ens cooped  in  baskets  at  the  ends  of  the  pole. 
And  what  is  this  row  in  their  rear?  It  is  a  hog 
— a  three  hundred  pounder — squealing  his  lungs 
loose.  Four  men  have  him.  He  is  swung  feet 
forward  to  the  pole,  and  so  he  has  come  for 
miles  and  so  he  will  go  to  the  shambles.  , 

This  is  followed  by  a  most  curious  spectacle, 
for  here  seems  to  be  moving  in  my  direction  the 
whole  inside  of  a  theatre.  There  is  first  an  or- 
nate Chinese  house,  curved  roof  and  all,  and 
then  a  lot  of  horses,  house  and  horses  all  made 
out  of  pasteboard  and  paper.  They  are  too  big 
for  toys  and  too  small  to  live  in  or  ride  on.  They 
are  going  to  a  funeral,  or  better,  being  carried; 
and  the  house  will  be  set  over  the  grave  so  that 
the  spirit  of  the  deceased  will  not  want  for 
habitation,  and  for  exercise  he  can  use  the  paper 
horses.  It  will  be  good  for  his  spiritual  liver. 

My  surmise  is  right,  for  eight  men  come 
grunting  along  with  one  of  the  huge  Chinese 
coffins.  On  top  of  it,  tied  by  the  leg,  is  a  rooster. 
He  will  be  killed  on  the  grave  for  the  departed 
one's  sustenance  as  he  crosses  the  dark  river. 

On  the  heels  of  this  funeral  come  four  well- 
dressed  Chinese  slightly  soused.  Evidently  they 
have  been  to  a  party  and  have  had  a  gay  time. 
They  are  getting  away  early  for  it  is  only  three 

189 


NEIGHBOUR  TO  THIBET 

in  the  afternoon.  They  are  the  first  men  show- 
ing signs  of  drink  I  have  seen  in  China.  They 
are  just  exhilarated,  just  noisy.  One  fat  reveler 
stepped  out  in  front  of  his  fellows  and  made  an 
assertion  about  his  own  courage — that  is,  he 
brandished  his  legs.  When  a  white  man  boasts, 
he  swells  his  chest  out;  when  a  Chinese  gets  gay 
he  throws  his  legs  around  like  a  pitcher  in  a 
baseball  game.  It  is  most  ridiculous  to  brandish 
the  legs  around  in  this  way.  It  is  as  much  as 
to  say  to  your  opponent:  "You  knock  the  chip 
off  my  shoulder  and  I'll  run  away  so  fast  that 
you  will  be  humiliated  all  your  life  for  not  hav- 
ing caught  me." 

While  I  was  watching  the  exhilarated  Chinese 
something  was  happening  just  below  Tung  Yuen 
Men,  the  gate.  For  half  a  mile  the  wall  was  cov- 
ered with  Chinese.  Down  in  front  of  the  wall 
was  a  soldier  and  standing  near  him  a  shaggy- 
headed  man  with  his  arms  bound  behind  him. 
That  whole  neighborhood  evidently  had  had 
word  of  the  pending  execution  of  this  bandit. 
Everybody  who  could,  lined  up  along  the  para- 
pet— old  and  young  of  both  sexes.  How  quiet 
they  were!  Was  each  one  saying,  "If  it  should 
have  been  I?"  Was  his  mother  there?  Prob- 
ably, waiting  to  claim  his  body.  How  there 
must  have  flashed  hot  through  her  soul  her  love 

190 


THE  ROAD  TO  CHENG-TU 

of  him  and  her  divine  hate  of  society  which  was 
to  sacrifice  him!  Why  don't  the  executioners 
hurry?  The  condemned  man  himself  was  quite 
composed,  but  the  crowd  was  in  a  perfect  torture 
of  silence.  Down  through  the  gate  they  come — 
ten  soldiers,  double  file  and  very,  very  quickly. 
Ten  gun  shots,  sounding  like  only  three  or  four. 
Why  should  they  have  hurried  so.?  Another 
minute  of  sunlight  would  have  meant  so  much 
to  him!  Very,  very  quickly  the  soldiers  have 
marched  away  again.  How  very  very  flat  a 
dead  man  is  on  the  ground !  How  flat  and  shape- 
less! And  how  even  the  tiniest  of  the  bawling 
beady-eyed  Chinese  babies  there  hushed  as  the 
shots  rung  out. 


191 


XXIX 
CHINA'S  GREAT  ERROR 

NEARBY  our  stopping  place   in  Chung- 
King  there  is  a  bastion  in  the  city  wall. 
Viewed  from  the  outside,  it  looks  like  a 
heavy  square  tower,  overhanging  a  steep  cliff. 
Inside  it  is  a  big,  deep,  ugly,  inaccessible  well. 
Just  back  of  this  well  is  a  heavy  platform  of 
masonry,   and   on  this  masonry,   flat,  without 
wheels  or  carriage  of  any  kind,  is  a  big  six-inch 
cannon. 

This  cannon  is  the  sole  defense  of  this  city, 
which  is  about  as  big  as  St.  Louis.  Of  course, 
the  wall  itself  is  a  defense.  It  is  strongly  built 
and  it  is  so  placed  that  it  overhangs  everywhere 
declivities.  There  are  eight  gates  to  the  city 
and  they  are  banged  shut  every  night  at  six. 
Anybody  caught  outside  stays  outside  until 
morning.  An  infantry  force,  without  artillery, 
could  not  take  Chung-King  in  a  year  if  the  gates 
were  protected.  Against  any  sort  of  well- 
directed  artillery  the  city  would  not  stand  ten 

192 


CHINA'S  GREAT  ERROR 

minutes'  real  bombardment  without  capitulating. 

The  cannon  to  which  I  have  alluded,  could  not 
be  fired.  It  is  not  mounted,  its  bore  is  closed 
with  dirt,  and  its  firing-vent  rusted  shut.  There 
are  no  cannon-balls  for  it.  It  must  be  two  hun- 
dred years  old  and  it  has  not  been  fired  probably 
for  a  hundred. 

I  never  looked  at  this  old  cannon  without 
reflecting  again  on  the  mystery  of  the  colossal 
inability  of  the  Chinese  to  fight.  What  is  the 
matter  with  them?  I  have  been  trying  to  find 
the  answer. 

To  begin  with  you  have  to  eliminate  a  lot  of 
ordinary  explanations.  First,  the  Chinese  are 
not  cowards.  Second,  they  are  not  serfs,  for 
they  believe  they  are  superior  to  the  white  peo- 
ple. Third,  they  are  capable  of  organized  action. 
That  is,  the  Chinese  people  have  courage,  pride 
and  capacity  for  concentrated  and  concerted  ac- 
tivity— just  those  qualities  which  hold  together 
the  great  armies  in  Europe.  What  is  it  they 
lack? 

For  they  certainly  lack  something.  If  a  good 
sized  army  of  bandits  should  suddenly  appear 
before  Chung-King,  a  contingency  not  at  all  im- 
possible any  time,  and  demand  the  surrender  of 
the  city,  the  chances  are  that  a  few  rich  Chinese 
would  put  up  a  lot  of  money  and  buy  the  town 

193 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

off.  They  would  not  fight.  In  the  same  way,  if 
the  United  States  should  do  something  which 
greatly  offended  the  Chinese,  there  would  be  no 
talk  of  war  on  us,  but  almost  universally  the 
Chinese  would  begin  to  boycott  American  goods, 
and  they  can  make  a  boycott  bull-strong  and 
hog-tight.  The  Chinese  army  is  quite  an  organ- 
ization. I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  it.  It  is 
well-drilled,  well-clad,  and  well-armed.  It  can 
shoot  straight.  But  it  won't  fight.  Time  after 
time  in  the  revolutions  which  have  set  up  and 
maintained  the  young  republic,  opposing  armies 
marched  valiantly  up  to  each  other,  spread  out 
in  battle  array,  and  then  politely  arranges  terms 
of  peace. 

Nine  out  of  ten  people  who  read  this  will  say 
that  the  Chinese  were  afraid.  But  they  were 
not  afraid.  They  simply  did  not  want  to  fight. 

I  have  heard  people  try  to  explain  the  mys- 
tery by  declaring  that  the  official  Chinese  re- 
ligion, Confucianism,  which  is  not  a  religion  at 
all,  but  a  philosophy,  makes  for  an  extreme  utili- 
tarianism— that  the  Chinaman  about  to  fight 
argues  that  there  can  be  in  a  blood-spilling  con- 
test only  great  loss.  But  it  is  not  a  sense  of 
utilitarianism  which  makes  the  Chinese  non- 
combatant.  No  nation  on  earth  is  as  quick  to 
take  a  risk  as  China.  No  people  is  as  idolatrous 

194 


CHINA'S  GREAT  ERROR 

of  material  wealth,  but  no  people  ever  has  or 
ever  will  gamble  with  it  as  do  the  Chinese.  Ev- 
erybody gambles. 

No,  the  explanation  is  not  there.  The  China- 
man, as  a  human  machine,  is  equipped  just  as 
the  American,  the  European,  the  Japanese,  the 
Indian,  the  Afghan,  the  Abyssinian,  or  anybody 
else.  He  is  not  lacking  in  any  fighting  qualities. 
But  he  is  lacking  one  vital  fighting  method.  That 
is  the  solution  of  the  mystery. 

Through  centuries  of  isolation  and  self-suffi- 
ciency the  Chinese  have  come  to  believe  in  the 
entire  virtue  of  the  elements  of  defense.  Every- 
where else  in  the  world  a  man  who  believes  he  is 
about  to  be  annihilated  will  himself  take  the  of- 
fensive, for  in  that  situation  the  only  effective 
defense  is  in  offensive  action.  The  Chinese, 
however,  argue  it  out  this  way.  The  stronger 
position  is  in  holding  your  forces  in  reserve, 
keeping  a  cool  head,  conserving  your  energy  and 
letting  your  opponent  waste  his  energy  and  take 
the  risks  of  attack.  That  is,  when  the  other  fel- 
low attacks,  the  Chinese  recedes.  Now  China 
has  always  been  able  to  recede.  Her  territories 
have  been  vast,  her  neighbors,  until  recently,  in- 
different. If  she  had  been  crowded  into  a  cor- 
ner in  the  past  she  would  have  just  as  much 
initiative  today  as  Japan  has  developed.  And 

195 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

the  world  might  have  seen  historical  repetition 
of  the  Hun  visitation  in  Rome,  long  since.  But 
China  has  so  long  believed  in  the  defensive  at- 
titude of  mind  that  it  is  doubtful  if  anyoody 
short  of  a  Hannibal  or  a  Napoleon  could  bring 
her  to  the  other  view. 

For  centuries  China  was  left  alone.  Between 
an  aggressive  Europe  and  herself  were  vast  ter- 
ritories held  by  semi-savages.  Between  the  new 
aggressive  American  and  herself  was  a  great 
waste  of  water.  Japan  was  not  awake. 

Japan  did  awake.  She  adopted  modern  de- 
vices. She  introduced  machinery.  She  set  up 
the  factory.  She  established  joint  stock  com- 
panies. She  discovered  she  was  cramped  for 
room.  The  first  thing  she  kicked  overboard  was 
her  sense  of  isolation.  Japan  didn't  want  to  do 
this.  She  liked  isolation.  She  didn't  want  to 
mix  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  But  once  she 
was  convinced  that  her  isolation  had  slipped 
away  from  her,  she  threw  the  memory  over- 
board. It  is  one  of  the  hardest  and  most  heroic 
things  on  earth  to  do. 

When  Japan  had  made  away  with  her  tradi- 
tion about  isolation  she  took  the  bull  by  the 
horns  and  did  another  astonishing  thing — she 
adopted  the  offensive  attitude  of  mind.  Japan 
had  been  just  as  defensive  in  her  attitude  as 

196 


CHINA'S  GREAT  ERROR 

China.  She  had  counted  on  her  insular  security 
as  much  as  England  ever  did.  She  believed  that 
the  way  to  avoid  trouble  was  to  convince  the 
world  that  she  didn't  want  trouble,  and  to  that 
end  she  intended  to  avoid  it.  But  now  Japan 
argued  that  if  isolation  was  a  thing  of  the  past, 
the  old  defensive  attitude  of  mind  was  a  danger- 
ous thing  to  have  around  the  house.  So  she 
flopped  right  over  and  took  the  other  side  of  the 
argument. 

There  is  only  one  rule  in  a  fight  and  it  has 
always  been  the  same.  Alexander  used  it,  so  did 
Caesar,  so  did  Napoleon,  so  did  Grant.  Their 
idea  was  this :  "If  it's  got  to  be  a  fight,  pick  the 
other  fellow's  weak  spot,  pick  it  quick,  get  all 
your  strength  ready,  and  hit  him  first."  This 
is  the  first  and  last  lesson  in  defense.  I  don't 
know  how  far  Japan  will  get  with  this  device, 
but  it  is  what  she  is  using  in  the  Orient,  and  up 
to  date  it  is  working  well.  First,  she  laid  China 
out  cold.  She  then  walloped  Russia  so  suddenly 
that  the  war  was  over  before  Russia  scarcely 
understood  that  it  had  begun.  Somebody  may 
say:  "Isn't  Japan  likely  to  overdo  the  offensive 
thing  ?"  That  is  possible.  For  while  the  defen- 
sive attitude  can  overcome  a  nation  with  dry-rot, 
the  offensive  attitude  also  can  quickly  break  its 
neck.  Whenever  a  nation  or  a  man  goes  in  on 

197 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

an  offensive  campaign  for  the  sheer  love  of 
offense,  it  is  good  night  for  him.  History  is  full 
of  examples  of  that.  Besides,  common  sense 
proves  it  must  be  so. 

But  while  offense  is  a  dangerous  state  of 
mind,  the  defensive  attitude  of  the  Chinese  is 
worse — for  the  end  is  in  deep  humiliation.  This, 
indeed,  is  the  biggest  lesson  the  Chinese  must 
learn.  If  they  are  to  keep  their  republic;  in- 
deed, if  they  are  to  retain  the  integrity  of  their 
country  under  any  form  of  government  this  side 
of  vassalage,  they  must  subscribe  to  a  doctrine 
which  the  world  will  some  day  outlive,  but  which 
it  is  dangerous  to  forget  now,  that  is,  if  another 
nation  has  a  gun  which  will  carry  ten  thousand 
yards,  you  cannot  protect  your  nation  with  a 
gun  that  carries  only  nine  thousand,  and  fur- 
ther, if  you  and  your  opponent  have  each  ten- 
thousand-yard  guns,  that  your  opponent  be 
given  to  understand  that  yours  is  ready  and  that 
you  have  spent  money  training  your  gunners  to 
be  swift  and  accurate. 

One  day  I  was  looking  the  old  cannon  over 
again  on  the  bastion  and  a  little  Japanese 
passed,  paused,  looked  the  gun  over  and  smiled. 
You  couldn't  blame  him.  And  you  couldn't 
help  blaming  the  Chinese.  For  it  would  be  bet- 
ter for  the  Chinese  to  have  no  cannon  at  all  than 

198 


CHINA'S  GREAT  ERROR 

to  have  this,  for  the  old  gun,  as  indeed  old  China 
herself,  with  all  her  disabilities,  loomed  in  my 
mind  suddenly  as  an  unholy  invitation  to  ag- 
gression, insult,  humiliation  and  destruction. 

Will  the  Republican  form  of  government  sen- 
sitize China  to  this  new  national  need?  The 
answer  is  in  the  laps  of  the  gods.  The  best 
guess  is  the  affirmative  one.  Imperialism  can 
swallow  an  insult  and  live.  A  democracy  can 
not,  and  China  is  set  on  remaining  a  democracy. 


199 


XXX 

CITIES  THAT  NEVER  DIE 

YOU  meet  a  Chinese  and  ask :  "How  old  is 
your  town?"  He  takes  on  the  same  look 
he  would  have  if  you  had  asked  him  the 
shape  of  the  nose  of  his  great-great-grandfather. 
Apparently  he  never  thought  of  it  before.  He 
usually  answers  that  the  town  has  been  here  for 
a  long  time.  And  he  is  right — it  has. 

Now,  an  interesting  feature  of  the  republic  of 
China  is  that  you  can  find  towns  in  every  pos- 
sible stage  of  growth  and  decay.  You  can  find 
old  cities  which  are  taking  on  new  life,  towns 
that  have  become  cities  in  a  century,  once  popu- 
lous centers  that  are  still  populous,  yet  are  all 
but  forgotten,  and  villages  that  haven't  changed 
size  in  four  thousand  years. 

Chung-King  is  an  instance  in  point.  The 
chances  are  that  there  has  been  a  city  here  for 
a  couple  of  thousand  years,  although  I  am  guess- 
ing at  that.  It  could  not  have  been  much  of  a 
place  commercially  until  the  white  man  got  a 

200 


CITIES  THAT  NEVER  DIE 

steamer  up  the  Yangtse  beyond  the  Gorges.  It 
began  to  boom  then,  and  it  is  booming  still.  If 
the  Americans  ever  build  their  railroad  up  the 
river,  it  will  become  the  Chicago  of  China. 
Now,  across  the  river  from  Chung-King  is  a  big 
walled  city  called  Kiang-peh.  It  is  as  dead  as  a 
door  nail.  It  doesn't  like  foreigners.  The  peo- 
ple over  there  murdered  the  first  American  mis- 
sionary who  appeared  and  threw  his  body  over 
the  wall.  It  isn't  growing.  It  is  dying  now. 
Two  thousand  years  from  now  it  may  be 
booming. 

Shanghai  is  a  big,  spanking  city  on  the  coast 
as  full  of  business  as  a  dog  is  of  fleas.  It  was  a 
fishing  village  a  century  ago.  Not  so  far  away 
from  Shanghai  is  the  city  of  Hangchow.  It  was 
founded  along  about  600  A.  D.  In  the  next  six 
hundred  years  Hangchow  became  the  "Queen 
City  of  the  Orient,"  a  sort  of  "Peerless  Princess 
of  the  Plains."  It  was  the  center  of  things  in 
art,  literature  and  commerce.  Marco  Polo  went 
wild  over  the  beauties  and  business  of  this  city. 
In  the  course  of  centuries  the  town  waned  in 
importance  and  was  finally  burned  in  a  rebellion. 
It  is  slowly  rebuilding,  but  you  hear  precious 
little  of  its  importance  in  China  now. 

On  the  road  from  Hankow  to  Peking  is  the 
city  of  Kaif  eng.  It  has  been  the  capital  of  the 

201 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

country  several  times.  When  the  Manchus  in- 
vaded China  they  took  Kaifeng  after  a  long, 
hard  siege.  They  then  cut  the  levees  of  the 
Yellow  river  and  flooded  the  town,  drowning  a 
hundred  thousand  people.  Little  is  heard  of 
Kaifeng  at  the  present  time  by  the  outside 
world,  and  that  little  is  in  connection  with  the 
attempt  of  a  colony  of  Hebrews  to  get  foothold 
in  China.  After  the  persecution  of  the  Jews  in 
Babylon,  it  is  believed  that  a  colony  set  out  for 
the  far  east  and  settled  at  Kaifeng.  This  colony 
grew  in  numbers  and  importance  for  centuries. 
It  built  a  splendid  synagogue  and  numbered 
seventy  clans.  Its  prosperity  came  to  an  end 
about  two  hundred  years  ago,  and  in  1870  only 
seven  of  the  seventy  clans  remained,  the  total 
number  of  persons  in  these  seven  clans  being 
two  hundred.  Their  religion  and  their  race  have 
fallen  into  decay.  They  intermarried  with  the 
Chinese  and  lost  their  racial  distinction,  and  it 
is  said  that  only  one  feature  of  the  Jewish  reli- 
gion survives — abstention  from  pork. 

Another  ancient  capital  of  China  is  the  city  of 
Sianfu.  This  town  was  flourishing  before  Rome 
got  on  its  feet.  It  was  the  seat  of  an  old 
emperor  named  Shih-hwang-ti,  who,  two  hun- 
dred years  before  Christ,  earned  the  everlasting 
condemnation  of  all  historians  by  a  fool  act. 

202 


CITIES  THAT  NEVER  DIE 

China  had  kept  pretty  good  historical  records  up 
to  that  time — the  oldest  in  the  world.  This  old 
codger  ordered  them  all  burned  on  the  theory 
that,  with  the  records  out  of  the  way,  he  would 
be  remembered  as  the  first  ruler  of  China. 
However,  Sianfu,  though  its  population  is  a 
million,  is  of  little  importance  to-day  to  the  out- 
side world,  the  chief  interest  in  it  centering  in 
the  fact  that  the  Nestorian  Christians  located 
here  about  five  hundred  years  after  Christ. 
Nestorius  was  a  Christian  priest  at  Antioch  who 
fell  out  with  the  church  authorities  over  some 
doctrinal  matter.  He  picked  up  a  colony  and 
set  out  for  China,  having  among  his  following 
one  negro.  For  centuries  these  Christians  sur- 
vived and  battled  away  against  the  inborn 
paganism  of  the  Chinese.  Several  hundred 
years  ago  they  prepared  a  tablet  telling  of  the 
glories  of  Christianity  and  set  it  up  at  Sianfu. 
It  is  still  in  existence.  The  Nestorians  disap- 
peared from  China  long  since,  although  when 
Marco  Polo  crossed  the  country  he  found  many 
of  them. 

Of  all  the  cities  of  China  which  evidence  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides  of  fortune,  Nanking  is 
easily  first.  It  has  now  a  population  of  four 
hundred  thousand,  but  its  walls  show  that  in 
the  past  it  has  accommodated  many  times  this 

203 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

number  of  people.  For  the  walls  now  take  in 
farms  and  fields,  in  the  midst  of  which  are  found 
big  bridges  which  formerly  were  parts  of  streets 
over  which  there  was  immense  traffic.  Nanking 
has  been  besieged  in  nearly  every  period  of  the 
country's  history.  War  has  swiped  it  with 
great  regularity  down  through  the  centuries. 
It  again  came  into  prominence  through  the  cir- 
cumstance that  the  new  republic  was  proclaimed 
there. 

Between  Hankow  and  Peking,  far  off  main- 
traveled  roads,  is  the  city  of  Chenchow.  It  is 
the  oldest  city  in  China.  It  started  in  3000 
B.  C.  Here  silk  was  invented  in  2500  B.  C.  by  a 
woman,  her  name  being  Yuen-fi.  She  was  one 
of  the  wives  of  the  third  emperor.  Invention 
ran  in  the  family,  for  the  old  man  himself, 
Hwang-ti,  introduced  carts  and  boats.  Man, 
who  scoots  around  in  automobiles  and  steam- 
ships, has  improved  the  cart  and  the  boat  some 
in  four  thousand  years,  but  silk  is  the  same. 
China  produces  about  two  hundred  million  dol- 
lars worth  a  year,  and  the  world's  demand  ex- 
ceeds the  supply.  Chenchow  is  little  known, 
and  I  have  found  no  one  who  has  ever  been  there. 
Another  town  in  southern  China  is  entitled  to  a 
place  in  history.  It  is  called  Zayton.  Satin 
was  invented  there,  it  is  claimed. 

204 


CITIES  THAT  NEVER  DIE 

Between  Chung-King  and  Shanghai  is  tKe 
city  of  Ching-teh-chen,  the  center  of  the  porce- 
lain craft.  It  is  now  and  it  always  has  been 
apparently.  The  Chinese  invented  porcelain. 
They  had  the  potter's  wheel  two  thousand  years 
before  Christ.  But  porcelain  under  the  name  of 
china  was  not  known  to  the  outside  world  for 
many  centuries  afterward.  The  zenith  of  this 
town's  career  was  in  Marco  Polo's  day,  when  two 
hundred  thousand  artisans  were  employed  in 
making  china  there.  Trade  has  fallen  off,  but 
Ching-teh-chen  remains  the  center  of  it. 

But  whether  trade  flourishes  or  fades  away, 
whether  wars  come  or  peace  lingers,  the  Chinese 
cities  remain  cities.  Western  Asia  and  Africa 
are  full  of  mounds  of  dust  that  once  were  the 
temples  and  palaces  of  men  and  women  who 
lived,  labored  and  loved.  Nineveh,  Babylon, 
Palmyra,  Carthage  and  Thebes  are  as  dead  as 
an  automobile  out  of  gas  on  a  muddy  road  on 
a  dark  night. 

For  some  mysterious  reason  Chinese  cities 
survive  all  destruction.  The  historian  Macauley 
talked  about  the  day  when  the  antiquarian  from 
Australia  would  stand  upon  a  grass-grown  heap 
in  England  and  say:  "This  was  London."  That 
is  all  right.  It  will  probably  come  to  pass  in 
the  fullness  of  time.  But  when  the  Australian 

205 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

is  thinking  over  the  glories  of  the  British  me- 
tropolis in  the  misty,  mighty  past  it  will  be  a 
dead  sure  shot  that  the  town  of  Chung-King, 
China,  will  be  just  as  crowded,  just  as  dirty, 
just  as  smelly  as  it  is  to-day  and  as  it  was  two 
thousand  years  ago. 


206 


XXXI 
THE  CHINESE  PRINTER 

IT  naturally  occurred  to  me  to  call  on  the 
editor  in  Chung-King.    I  didn't  expect  to 
create  a  panic.    But  I  did.    There  are  three 
daily  newspapers  in  Chung-King — that  is,  they 
are  daily  occasionally.    Every  once  in  a  while 
your  paper  will  quit  coming  for  a  week  and  you 
will  ask  the  carrier  why  and  he  will  say :  "Paper 
stopped  for  a  while.    Run  out  of  money." 

I  selected  the  paper  called  Min  Tsu  Pao — that 
is,  "The  Newspaper  of  the  People  Awake."  Now, 
I  didn't  know  at  the  time  that  there  had  been  a 
lot  of  excitement  in  newspaper  circles  the  pre- 
vious week.  There  had  been,  just  the  same. 
There  is  a  general  here  named  Hsua,  a  little 
roly-poly  Chinese  who  is  a  pretty  good  fellow. 
The  previous  week  the  editor  of  "The  Newspaper 
of  the  Strong  Heart"  wrote  a  piece  calling  Hsua 
a  lot  of  names.  Hsua  went  up  in  the  air  like  a 
candidate  for  county  commissioner  in  his  first 
campaign.  The  oftener  Hsua  read  the  editorial 

207 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

the  more  he  wanted  to  lick  the  editor.  But  he 
didn't.  He  compromised.  He  closed  the  "Strong 
Heart"  paper  up.  Now,  the  "People  Awake"  re- 
published  that  editorial  before  it  knew  Hsua  was 
hot.  Down  Hsua  came  on  the  "People  Awake," 
and  he  made  Rome  howl,  finally  agreeing  to  fine 
the  "People  Awake"  twenty  dollars.  Now,  I 
didn't  know  this.  So  when  I  appeared  with  my 
interpreter  at  the  office  of  the  "People  Awake" 
there  was  a  stampede.  I  must  have  looked  like 
an  irate  subscriber. 

The  office  of  the  "People  Awake"  is  in  an  old 
temple.  This  is  strictly  Chinese.  Temples  in 
China  are  used  for  pretty  nearly  everything 
except  for  worship.  They  hold  markets  in  them, 
use  them  for  hotels,  quarter  soldiers  in  them; 
and  it  was  natural  for  the  "People  Awake"  to  do 
business  alongside  three  big  gold  Buddhas  sit- 
ting in  solemn  silence  in  a  sea  of  cobwebs. 
When  I  appeared  there  were  about  ten  news- 
paper men  standing  out  in  front  of  the  office  just 
"mooning"  in  an  abstract  way  Chinese  have. 
When  they  saw  me  these  men  made  a  dash  for 
the  door  and  disappeared  like  the  rear  of  a  red- 
ball  freight  train  around  a  curve.  I  followed  up, 
however,  and,  as  there  are  no  doors  in  China,  I 
cornered  the  whole  force.  It  was  all  right  when 
they  saw  I  wasn't  mad — that  I  couldn't  even 

208 


THE  CHINESE  PRINTER 

read  Chinese,  and  was  seeking  light,  not  gore. 
The  chief  editor,  Mr.  Yen,  conducted  me  into 
a  small  room,  and  I  took  a  seat  along  the  wall; 
This  wouldn't  do  at  all.  I  had  to  have  the 
throne  seat — a  high  seat  in  the  center.  Then 
a  servant  brought  tea  and  rice  cakes.  This  tea 
business  always  happens.  After  it  was  over  I 
interviewed  the  whole  crowd.  They  have  three 
writers  on  the  "People  Awake."  They  do  not  go 
out  after  the  news,  but  wait  until  the  police 
send  it  in.  Then  they  write  it  and  send  it  with 
the  telegraph  over  to  the  printer.  They  get  a 
small  telegraph  service  from  Peking.  How  do 
they  send  the  Chinese  characters  by  wire?  It 
is  simple.  They  give  every  word  in  the  diction- 
ary a  number  and  then  wire  the  numbers. 
These  telegrams  are  translated  and  sent  to  the 
printer.  When  the  last  bit  of  copy  is  sent  to 
the  printer  in  America  the  writer  puts  on  the 
last  sheet  "thirty."  Here  they  put  the  Chinese 
characters  for  "finished."  The  paper  is  off  the 
press  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  is  deliv- 
ered by  five  carriers,  who  finish  their  job  by  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  These  carriers  get 
$1.50  a  month.  I  asked  the  writers  a  lot  of 
direct  questions.  Their  answers  were  almost 
always  indirect,  for  Chinese  do  not  answer  until 
they  have  guessed  what  you  are  trying  to  get 

209 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

them  to  answer.  Then  their  disposition  is  to 
avoid  giving  information.  You  can't  blame 
them,  for  my  questions  were  leading.  "What 
did  they  think  of  Japan  ?"  They  thought  Japan 
might  be  of  great  help  to  China.  "Would  Japan 
and  the  United  States  ever  fight,  in  their 
opinion?"  They  answered,  "Probably  not."  Would 
the  Chinese  Republic  last?  They  hoped  so.  Did 
they  favor  the  re-election  of  the  present  presi- 
dent of  China  for  another  term  of  five  years? 
They  did.  Were  the  people  of  China  in  favor 
of  the  Allies  or  the  Germans  ?  The  Chinese  peo- 
ple didn't  care  who  won,  but  everybody  hoped 
the  war  would  soon  end.  Were  the  people  inter- 
ested in  news  about  the  war?  At  first  the  peo- 
ple were,  but  they  were  not  any  longer.  They 
were  tired  of  it. 

I  got  one  of  the  reporters  to  steer  me  over  to 
the  printers.  This  is  an  establishment  where 
all  the  papers  are  set  up  and  printed.  I  could 
catch  the  smell  of  printer's  ink,  over  all  the 
other  smells  of  China,  a  block  off.  The  foreman 
of  this  shop  was  a  tall,  lean  printer  with  a  bright 
eye.  He  led  me  to  a  little  room,  made  me  take 
the  throne  seat  and  served  me  tea.  He  was 
bubbling  over  with  a  piece  of  news,  and  he  let 
me  have  it.  Two  Chinese  girls,  Wan  Yaw  Chen 
and  Chua  Fe,  had  been  to  him  that  morning  to 

210 


THE  CHINESE  PRINTER 

know  if  he  could  print  a  daily  paper  for  them. 
They  were  about  thirty  years  of  age,  apparently 
unmarried,  had  been  educated  in  Japan  and  were 
of  the  middle  class,  and  they  wanted  to  start  the 
paper  to  push  the  cause  of  equal  suffrage  in 
Chung-King.  The  printer  thought  this  was 
about  the  funniest  thing  in  the  world — and  if 
you  knew  Chung-King  you  would  think  so,  too. 
The  foreman  took  me  at  once  out  into  the 
composing  room.  The  first  thing  that  struck  me 
were  the  printers — rather  their  manner.  They 
were  absolutely  indifferent  to  my  presence — in 
true  printer  style.  Everywhere  else  in  this  part 
of  China  a  man  in  our  dress  causes  a  cessation 
of  business.  People  follow  you  on  the  street  in 
droves,  trying  to  figure  out  how  you  make  your 
clothes  stay  on.  But  the  printers  ignored  me. 
Each  wore  a  hat  with  a  black  button  on  top  and 
worked  in  a  little  room  made  of  three  upright 
cases  reaching  from  the  floor  to  a  point  above 
his  head.  The  type  compartments  are  about  an 
inch  square,  and  contain  about  six  types.  These 
types  are  nicked  the  same  as  our  old  hand  type. 
A  single  case  contains  about  ten  thousand  char- 
acters. The  printers  use  a  "stick,"  just  as  we 
do,  but  no  "rule,"  and  their  work  was  quite 
rapid.  The  Chinese  memory,  and  this  big  type 
case  makes  it  hump,  all  right,  is  really  uncanny. 

211 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

Memory  with  us  is  a  lost  art.  I  watched  some 
distributors  at  work,  and  found  that  they  dis- 
tribute "dry."  This  is  all  right,  for  the  types 
are  shoved  into  the  compartments,  not  dropped. 
The  printers  work  different  periods  of  time — 
some  ten  hours,  some  twelve,  some  fifteen. 
They  are  paid  on  a  basis  of  length  of  service.  A 
new  man  gets  $5  a  month ;  the  oldest  man  in  the 
establishment  draws  $10  a  month — big  wages  in 
this  part  of  China.  A  small,  slant-eyed  imp 
washed  the  type.  But  they  have  no  designation 
for  him,  and  they  didn't  understand  why  we 
called  him  "the  devil"  in  America.  The  type  is 
set  in  columns  of  about  fifteen  "ems."  They 
call  it  "two  thumbs,"  but  it  is  no  more  the 
length  of  two  thumbs  than  a  foot  in  our  meas- 
urement is  the  length  of  a  man's  foot.  The 
most  striking  thing  about  a  Chinese  print  shop 
is  that  it  is  necessary  to  make  the  type  in  the 
shop.  This  is  because  of  the  Chinese  language. 
It  has  so  many  characters  that  it  would  be  prac- 
tically impossible  to  keep  a  full  font  on  hand  all 
the  time.  Some  high-brow  editor  is  liable  to 
swing  into  the  office  with  a  letter  that  hasn't 
been  used  more  than  twice  in  the  last  hundred 
years.  It  is  necessary  to  get  that  letter,  so  the 
Chinese  make  it.  In  a  room  off  the  composing 
room  they  have  several  type-casting  machines. 

212 


THE  CHINESE  PRINTER 

These  machines  are  easily  the  best  pieces  of 
mechanism  in  the  shop.  They  cost  about  one 
hundred  dollars.  Like  the  presses,  they  are 
are  manufactured  in  Shanghai. 

The  presses  themselves  are  marvels.  There 
were  two,  and  they  were  little  dumpy,  flat-bed 
concerns — just  one  degree  above  a  Washington 
hand  press.  One  man  feeds,  another  man  takes 
the  printed  sheet  away  and  a  third  man  attends 
to  the  ink  rollers.  The  presses  were  literally 
swimming  in  oil  and  looked  like  they  hadn't  been 
rubbed  off  for  a  year. 

While  watching  the  presses  I  considered  the 
fact  that  there  are  in  this  province  of  China 
nearly  as  many  people  as  there  are  in  the  United 
States;  that  it  wouldn't  be  such  a  tremendous 
miracle  if  a  tenth  of  them  in  the  next  half  cen- 
tury got  the  reading  habit,  and  that  the  news- 
paper field  which  offered  ten  million  readers 
would  be  some  field. 

And  I  was  dead  sure  of  this:  If  that  miracle 
could  happen,  not  in  fifty  years,  but  in  five 
years,  as  a  miracle  should,  and  "The  Newspaper 
of  the  People  Awake"  could  be  read  by  fifty 
thousand  people,  instead  of  by  its  present  eight 
hundred,  there  would  be  no  question  about  the 
future  of  the  Chinese  republic. 


213 


XXXII 
A  CERTAIN  RICH  MAN  IN  WANHSIEN 

IT  has  been  my  desire  to  describe  to  you  a 
rich  man  in  China.    I  have  various  reasons 
back  of  the  desire.    First,  I  wanted  to  make 
some  comparisons  with  the  things  we  read  in 
romance  and  the  Chinese  films  we  see  at  the 
movies.    Next  I  wanted  to  offer  something  in 
China  not  touched  with  dire  poverty  or  the 
thing  which  is  worse — hungry  avarice.    And, 
lastly,  I  wanted  to  preach  a  little  sermon  about 
Mammon. 

On  the  first  score,  I  can  vindicate  the  movies 
and  cannot  the  written  romances.  The  rich 
Chinese  I  have  seen  in  the  movies  are  very  true 
to  life.  The  rich  Chinese  of  romance  are  mostly 
inventions.  The  rich  Chinese  I  am  to  describe 
is  not  avaricious — he  has  all  that  money  can  buy 
except  more  money,  and  that  he  doesn't  want. 
I  will  leave  the  sermon  to  the  last. 

When  I  arrived  at  the  city  of  Wanhsien,  I 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  a  friend,  who  knew 

214 


A  CERTAIN  RICH  MAN  IN  WAHSIEN 

what  I  wanted,  through  the  ancient  town  and 
over  a  very  high  arched  bridge,  in  crossing 
which  you  go  upstairs  and  downstairs,  the 
bridge  being  as  two  stairways  propped  up 
against  each  other.  We  met  long  processions  of 
Chinamen  carrying  on  shoulder  poles  big  conical 
cakes  of  indigo  each  about  the  size  of  a  pump- 
kin. We  also  passed  several  wedding  proces- 
sions, this  being  a  "lucky  day"  and  much  chosen. 
I  did  not  see  the  bride  in  any  instance,  for  she 
was  always  tucked  away  in  the  big  red  chair  as 
she  bobbed  along  to  meet  the  sweetheart  she 
does  not  see  until  the  nuptial  day. 

My  friend  and  I  were  bound  for  the  palace  of 
Mr.  Yang.  We  found  it  on  a  beautiful  hill,  hid- 
den in  a  grove  of  cedars.  Above  and  beyond  it 
loomed  a  rocky,  almost  inaccessible  and  wholly 
impregnable  crag,  around  the  top  of  which  is  a 
high  wall — a  city  of  refuge.  In  the  distance  the 
city  of  Wanhsien,  with  its  curved  roofs  and  col- 
ored temples,  swam,  fairy-like,  in  the  afternoon 
sunlight.  The  scene  was  ideal — a  mixture  of 
pastoral  and  medieval — the  frowning  fortress 
and  the  peaceful  valley.  It  was  all  Chinese. 
There  are  only  six  white  folks  there. 

Our  Chinese  chair  coolies  knocked  at  the  great 
gate  again  and  again,  but  there  was  no  response. 
It  was  explained  to  me  that  possibly  Mr.  Yang 

215 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

had  gone  up  to  the  city  of  refuge,  where  he  spent 
much  of  his  time  since  the  bandits  had  become 
troublesome.  All  the  rich  lived  up  there.  The 
gate  was  finally  opened  by  a  genial,  well-clad 
Chinese,  who  led  us  into  a  great  enclosure,  up  a 
flight  of  steps  to  a  second  gate  which  opened  at 
his  knock,  heavily,  creakily,  and  spread  before 
us  a  big  garden  and  back  of  it  a  long  palace 
made  up  of  a  main  building  with  two  wings. 
The  wall  of  the  house  first  interested  me.  It 
carried  near  its  top  a  wide  border  in  porcelain 
— blue,  red  and  yellow.  The  border  was  divided 
into  scenes,  traditional  and  historical.  I  had  a 
chance  to  study  one  of  these  scenes  while  we 
waited  for  our  host — it  showed  a  Chinese  in 
very  ancient  attire  playing  a  blue  flute.  Out  of 
the  end  of  the  flute  flew  a  purple  flame-like 
ladle,  and  on  this  ladle  three  Chinese  girls  were 
dancing — that  is,  they  were  dancing,  not  to  his 
music,  but  on  it. 

After  we  had  waited  a  bit  we  were  taken  into 
another  reception  room.  Walls,  stairways, 
chairs — everything  was  ornate,  not  gaudily,  but 
with  rich  and  curious  carvings  of  figures  or 
flowers — much  of  it  in  sandstone.  A  servant 
brought  to  us  the  son  of  the  family — a  boy  of 
ten — very  modest,  in  plain  black  silk  with  the 
black  silk  skull  cap  common  in  China  well  down 

216 


A  CERTAIN  RICH  MAN  IN  WAHSIEN 

over  his  chubby  face.  The  boy  was  very  well- 
mannered  and  without  nervousness,  making  his 
bows  without  self -consciousness.  With  this 
youngster  and  a  retinue  of  servants  we  passed 
on  through  the  palace  to  an  interior  garden  in 
which  stood  a  high,  fancifully  carved,  sandstone 
teahouse  with  two  roofs — there  had  been  three, 
it  was  explained  to  me,  but  when  a  workman 
mending  a  roof  had  fallen  and  hurt  himself,  Mr. 
Yang  took  one  of  the  roofs  off.  Here  we  were 
joined  by  the  host,  Mr.  Yang.  He  is  a  little, 
thin,  bright-eyed  Chinese  with  a  quick  smile. 
He  was  clad  in  a  plain  brown  silk  gown  with  a 
skull  cap  of  the  same  color.  When  I  pressed 
him  through  the  interpreter  he  told  me  his  fam- 
ily had  been  in  the  cotton  fabric  business  in 
Wanhsien  for  two  hundred  years.  His  home 
had  cost  him  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  He 
had  lost  all  his  children  save  this  one  son.  It 
was  plain  that  his  whole  life  was  wrapped  up  in 
this  boy.  If  he  should  die — and  that  is  the  con- 
stant thought  in  this  household — the  line  would 
pass,  and  that  would  mean  that  not  only  Mr. 
Yang  himself,  but  all  his  ancestors  would  be 
uncared  for. 

I  began  to  see  the  tragedy  of  this  palace  then. 
The  sum  of  all  its  happiness  pivoted  on  this 
child — riches,  luxury,  gain,  and  all  that  desire 

217 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

planned  or  ambition  craved  were  as  nothing 
compared  with  the  besetting  fear  that  the  boy 
would  not  live.  There  was  no  emphasis  upon 
the  point  by  the  father  except  in  his  constant 
watch  over  the  child.  Together  we  wandered 
about  over  the  garden  and  into  the  little  rooms 
which  surrounded  it — a  library  with  a  litter  of 
Chinese  books,  lounging  rooms,  tea-rooms  and  a 
drinking  room  with  a  legend  over  the  entrance. 
"One  hundred  rooms" — that  is,  the  drinkers 
could  go  their  length — there  were  plenty  of 
beds  here — they  needn't  think  of  going  home. 
There  was  nothing  of  revealed  or  concealed 
pride,  no  hint  of  boastfulness  in  Mr.  Yang's 
manner  as  he  showed  us  about.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  let  one  of  the  servants — he  has  thirty 
— do  most  of  the  leading,  while  he  loitered  be- 
hind with  us  and  the  little  boy.  We  did  not  go 
into  the  wing  where  the  family  lived,  and  I  have 
to  register,  as  all  travelers  to  China  must,  that 
you  do  not  see  the  wives  of  rich  men. 

Eventually  we  rounded  up  in  a  little  tearoom. 
Mr.  Yang  took  no  pains  to  seat  his  guests 
according  to  precedent,  a  thing  the  white  people 
in  China  guard  jealously,  as  do  most  of  the 
Chinese,  the  white  people  putting  the  guest  of 
honor  at  the  right,  the  Chinese  theirs  to  the  left. 
Evidently  this  social  gew-gaw  had  never  reached 

218 


A  CERTAIN  RICH  MAN  IN  WAHSIEN 

Mr.  Yang,  or  if  it  had,  he  didn't  care  for  it. 

Mr.  Yang  had  never  been  to  the  coast.  He 
had  never  been  to  Peking.  His  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  is  confined  to  Szechuan.  He 
read  no  newspapers  or  magazines.  His  servants 
poured  the  tea,  scented  with  jasmine  blossoms, 
and  set  out  little,  round,  sweet  cakes,  and  every- 
body, Chinese  fashion,  waited  for  the  host  to 
take  the  first  sip.  Evidently  this  custom  did 
not  cling  strongly  in  Mr.  Yang's  memory,  for  he 
was  interested  in  conversation  and  let  the  tea 
grow  cold.  After  the  tea  the  servants  brought 
the  hot  towels.  These  were  scented  delicately, 
and  the  host  mopped  his  face  with  one  vigor- 
ously, and  with  disregard  of  the  act  as  a  polite 
custom. 

The  man  was  hungry  for  company.  He 
pressed  us,  not  in  politeness,  but  genuinely,  to 
pass  the  night  with  him.  The  boy  was  as 
eager.  He,  too,  young  as  he  was,  craved  the 
chance  of  interruption  to  their  deadly  monotony. 
So  when  they  bowed  us  out  through  the  big 
carved  gates  it  was  with  real  regret  that  we 
were  to  leave  them  so  soon. 

Now,  for  the  sermon.  I  carried  away  with  me 
as  we  left  the  shadows  of  the  crowded  cedars 
and  followed  the  narrow,  shining  road  out  into 
the  shadows  of  the  night  the  old  lesson  again 

219 


CERTAIN  ASPECTS  OF  SZECHUAN  LIFE 

that  of  all  things  wealth  is  the  weakest.    Here 
was  a  new  view  of  an  old  truth,  however.    The 
possession  of  wealth  here  was  ideal.    It  had 
expended  itself  in  the  creation  of  a  fairyland 
home.    It  was  not  hampered  by  ambition  or 
avarice.    In  this  case  wealth  had  not  subjected 
itself  to  the  tortures  of  envy  or  emulation.    It 
had   removed   from   the  life   of   its   possessor 
all  thought   of   strife,   either  to   retain  it  or 
increase  it.    People  say  very  frequently  in  the 
midst  of  the  moil  and  toil  of  living:  "If  I  had  a 
million,  I  would  build  a  beautiful  home  away 
from  everybody  and  everything.    I  would  take 
my  own  out  into  a  beautiful  walled  garden  and 
there,  alone  with  my  flowers  and  birds  and  my 
loved  ones,  I  would  throw  away  all  that  cramps 
the  soul  and  pinches  the  heart  and  narrows  the 
mind.    I  would  be  rich  in  myself,  my  books,  my 
thoughts,  my  family  and  in  my  own."    That  is, 
they  would  turn  themselves  into  happy,  luxu- 
rious hermits.    It  sounds  well.    But  there  is 
nothing  in  it.    For  when  a  man  has  built  his 
home  and  got  all  his  own  within  it  he  has  left 
his  dearest  possession  outside  the  walls — the 
world  itself.    For  I  could  not  help  reflecting  as 
I  passed  through  the  palace  and  found  all  the 
clocks  recording  different  time  and  all  of  them 
hours  slow  that  the  only  thing  which  keeps  any 

220 


A  CERTAIN  RICH  MAN  IN  WAHSIEN 

of  us  in  spiritual  order  is  the  old  rantankerous, 
jostling,  hustling,  double-fisted,  hob-nailed 
world,  which,  after  all,  is  cruel  only  to  be  kind. 

One  of  our  greatest  debts  is  to  Xantippe.  Had 
she  been  amiable,  Socrates  would  have  hung 
around  the  house  and  turned  insipid.  She  chased 
him  out  among  the  cobblers,  the  butchers  and 
the  bakers  and  produced  a  wisdom  against  which 
the  world  has  been  whetting  it  wits  ever  since. 


221 


XXXIII 
THE  EVIL  SPIRIT  OF  THE  YANGTSE 

WHEN  the  devil  was  thrown  head-long 
and    head-first    out    of    heaven    he 
landed  in  the  Yangtse  river.     This 
is  neither  an  historical  fact  nor  a  Chinese  leg- 
end.   It  is  my  private  opinion,  and  this  is  the 
way  I  feel  about  it.    The  stream  has  so  many 
demoniacal  sides  that  it  never  could  have  ac- 
quired them  except  by  personal  contact  with  the 
Old  Man  himself. 

Moreover,  I  think  that  the  devil  not  only 
landed  in  the  Yangtse,  but  I  am  virtually  con- 
vinced that  he  liked  the  valley  so  well  that  he 
has  stayed.  Of  course,  he  may  take  a  trip  oc- 
casionally, such  as  one  to  start  a  drouth  m 
Australia  or  a  war  in  Europe,  but  his  old  home 
place  is  the  dear  old  rantankerous,  rebellious, 
man-strangling,  boat-wrecking,  boiling,  boister- 
ous Yangtse. 

You  don't  really  see  the  Yangtse  as  the 
devil's  own  at  first.  You  are  apt  to  stand  un- 

222 


THE  EVIL  SPIRIT  OF  THE  YANGTSE 

der  an  awning  on  the  upper  deck  and  exclaim 
over  the  wonders  of  the  curling  waters  and  the 
beauties  of  the  careening  junks.  With  the  gorg- 
eous mountains  all  about  and  the  green  fields 
and  the  blue  sky,  it  all  seems  a  bit  of  heaven. 
But  you  get  over  that  as  you  come  to  know  the 
Yangtse.  Knowledge  begins  with  the  "floaters," 
the  dead  people  who  are  whirled  around  in  the 
current — the  women  corpses  always  face  up, 
the  men  corpses  face  down.  You  increase  your 
real  insight  into  affairs  when  you  have  seen 
several  drown  before  your  eyes,  all  of  them  hor- 
ribly sucked  down  out  of  sight  as  though  the 
devil  himself  had  hold  of  their  legs.  A  man 
usually  has  a  floundering,  fighting  chance  to 
stay  afloat,  even  at  sea,  but  no  chance  at  all  in 
the  Yangtse — plump!  and  he  is  gone  forever. 
And  you  come  to  know  what  a  monster  the  river 
is  when  you  find  the  modern  steamers  piled  up 
at  the  foot  of  the  gorges  with  broken  shafts, 
shattered  propellers  and  busted  boilers — at  the 
end  of  the  season,  cripples  every  one.  They  say 
that  the  Yangtse  drowns  a  thousand  a  year.  It 
is  a  rank  guess.  Nobody  has  any  statistics  on 
it — ten  thousand  may  be  nearer  the  mark.  Up 
and  down  its  banks  on  either  side  from  Hankow 
to  Chung-King  are  shrines  to  the  river  gods.  On 
the  rocks  in  the  center  of  the  stream,  visible  at 

223 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

low  water,  are  more  gods  carved  in  the  stone — 
gods  that  take  care  of  the  drowned  people  be- 
neath the  surface  in  high  water  and  of  the  live 
ones  on  top  in  low  water.  Along  the  shore  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other  are  long 
banners  to  indicate  that  someone  was  drowned 
off  this  point  yesterday  or  the  day  before.  And 
once  in  a  while  a  light  will  be  found  at  the 
water's  edge,  burning  perpetually,  in  aid  of  some 
poor  soul  who  has  been  sucked  down.  At  Ichang 
one  day  every  year  they  set  loose  thousands  of 
little  colored  paper  boats,  each  containing  burn- 
ing oil,  and  let  them  float  in  a  flock  down  the 
swirling  waters  for  the  dead. 

So  everybody  gets  to  loos  upon  the  Yangtse 
with  the  respect  which  is  really  not  respect  at 
all,  but  calloused  dread.  You  come  to  under- 
stand that  if  you  accidentally  step  off  the  deck 
and  hit  the  water  you  might  as  well  write  "ap- 
proved by  the  national  board  of  censors"  after 
your  life  and  call  it  quits.  For  it  is  quits.  The 
newcomer  will  cross  the  river  at  night  in  a  sam- 
pan and  pay  the  extra  price  with  glee  over  the 
adventure.  The  old  stager  prefers  to  stay  on 
this  side  of  the  river  until  daybreak,  even  if  he 
has  to  sleep  on  a  rock.  Indeed,  if  you  stay  long 
enough  in  this  part  of  China  you  will  come  fin- 
ally into  the  belief  that  the  Yangtse  is  laying  for 

224 


THE  EVIL  SPIRIT  OF  THE  YANGTSE 

you — and  that  it  will  get  you  sooner  or  later. 

For  surely,  if  slowly,  the  Yangtse  ceases  to  be 
a  river  and  becomes  a  personality — a  murder- 
ous, clutching  fiend  with  a  tiger's  taste  for  blood. 
Captain  Brandt  of  the  Shu-Hun,  who  plies  be- 
tween Ichang  and  Chung-King,  told  me  that  dur- 
ing the  seven  months  of  navigation  on  the  up- 
per river  there  were  really  seven  rivers.  Every 
month  presented  a  new  set  of  problems  and  put 
some  new  and  unexpected  drag  on  the  machin- 
ery. Consequently  after  you  had  a  little  experi- 
ence with  the  stream  you  quit  standing  on  deck 
and  glorying  in  the  scenery.  You  drop  aft  and 
look  down  in  the  engine  room,  where  the  en- 
gineer stands,  wrench  in  hand,  sweating  like  an 
ice  pitcher  in  July  and  cursing  the  piston  and 
eccentrics  to  the  full  power  of  his  profanity. 

With  most  white  men  the  last  stage  of  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Yangtse  is  to  regard  it  as 
a  personal  enemy.  Not  so  with  the  Chinese 
They  have  known  the  Yangtse  for  a  matter  of 
four  thousand  years — grandfather,  father,  son, 
this  trinity  multiplied  a  thousand  times.  And 
to  the  Chinese  the  Yangtse  is  not  merely  a  per- 
son; it  is  a  super-person.  It  is,  in  truth,  the 
devil  himself,  a  powerful,  cunning,  treacherous 
entity  which  is  both  Man  and  Thing,  a  sleepless, 
aggressive,  soul-devouring  monster. 

225 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

It  is  no  easy  matter  for  a  white  man  to  get 
the  mental  curve  which  turns  a  Thing  into  a 
Person,  and  that  person  the  devil.  The  Chinese 
do  it  easily.  In  fact,  about  the  only  place  the 
devil  really  survives  is  in  China.  He  is  on  the 
job  here.  Everywhere  else  he  has  become  a  fig- 
ure of  speech  expressing  an  element- 
Now  the  devil  in  China  is  not  an  element,  he 
is  a  person.  He  is  not  a  superstition  here;  he 
is  a  reality.  He  has  vigor,  cunning  and  inde- 
fatigability.  He  also  has  his  weaknesses,  and 
because  of  this  fact  the  devil  keeps  the  Chinese 
almost  as  busy  as  he  is  himself.  For,  because  of 
these  weaknesses,  the  Chinese  is  always  trying 
to  beat  the  devil.  For  one  thing,  the  devil  can- 
not stand  light.  He  cannot  travel  in  a  crooked 
line.  The  light  idea  is  rational.  Evil  shuns  the 
sun  and  revels  in  the  dark.  Occident  or  Orient. 
But  the  crooked  line  scheme  is  complex.  For 
evil  with  us  is  as  full  of  curves  as  a  bull  snake. 
Nine  out  of  ten  people  who  sin  wouldn't  have 
done  anything  of  the  kind  if  evil  had  attacked 
them  directly.  Those  who  fall  are  tricked  by 
the  devious  and  seductive  approaches  of  evil. 
If  Sin  were  frank  in  its  attacks  it  would  be  ugly 
and  easily  repulsed.  But  Sin  is  often  indirect 
and  alluring  and  is  not  easily  identified  and  so 
speedily  put  down.  The  devil  with  us  is  a  sly 

226 


THE  EVIL  SPIRIT  OF  THE  YANGTSE 

side-stepper.  With  the  Chinese  he  is  as  straight 
as  a  steel  bullet.  Consequently  when  a  China- 
man who  has  relations  with  the  devil  is  not 
lighting  joss  sticks  to  keep  him  away  he  is 
traveling  a  crooked  path  to  beat  him  out.  No 
road,  street  or  path  in  China  is  straight.  Be- 
fore virtually  every  door  is  a  protective  stone 
screen,  some  of  those  before  temples  being  mas- 
sive tablets. 

Now  this  wouldn't  be  so  very  interesting  if 
the  devil  in  China  was  as  he  is  with  us,  an  un- 
pleasant and  rather  grotesque  tradition.  But  in 
China,  in  the  minds  of  the  Chinese  he  actually 
exists,  and,  moreover,  he  is  a  demon  for  work. 
There  are  millions  of  Chinese  who  fere  not  relig- 
ious except  in  their  respect  for  his  Satanic  ma- 
jesty. There  are  plenty  of  Chinese  who  scoff 
at  all  religious,  their  own  included.  They  will 
laugh  at  their  own  superstitions,  as  we  do  at 
"Friday"  and  "thirteen,"  but,  put  to  the  test, 
the  Chinaman  knuckles  in  short  order  before  the 
devil. 

For  instance,  the  first  officer  of  our  boat 
brought  aboard  a  couple  of  vultures  which  he 
had  shot.  The  Chinese  quartermaster,  a  rather 
pleasant  and  intelligent  young  man,  greedily 
gouged  out  the  eyes  of  the  birds  and  ate  them 
"because  they  would  make  his  eyes  very  keen." 

227 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

While  I  was  trying  to  keep  my  dinner  down,  the 
captain  explained  to  me  that  the  Chinese  sailors 
believed  it,  just  as  they  believed  that  eating  the 
heart  of  a  tiger  raw  would  make  them  brave. 
Then  the  captain  said :  "The  mysterious  part  of 
it  is  that  intelligence  or  ignorance  does  not  en- 
ter into  the  proposition.  A  Chinese  cringes  be- 
fore his  supersition.  Take  my  steward.  You 
cannot  deny  his  intelligence.  He  speaks  Eng- 
lish like  a  statesman  and  writes  beautiful  Chin- 
ese. He  reads  a  lot  and  in  his  way  is  quite  a 
philosopher.  I  don't  believe  he  has  any  religion. 
I  suspect  him  of  Atheism.  On  one  of  my  trips 
things  went  wrong.  The  coal  didn't  steam  and 
we  lost  time.  We  had  trouble  with  the  gear  in 
a  rapid.  Everything  got  at  sixes  and  sevens.  I 
guess  we  all  lost  our  tempers.  Now  I  wasn't 
surprised  at  the  coolie  sailors  deciding  that  a 
bad  joss  pidgin  was  at  work  on  the  ship  and  I 
didn't  give  their  firecrackers  astern  a  second 
thought,  but  when  I  dropped  aft  and  found  my 
philosopher  steward  in  his  room  burning  joss 
sticks  to  beat  the  band  it  rather  shocked  me. 
Of  course,  the  steward  was  sheepish  about  it, 
and  hadn't  expected  me  to  know  of  his  antics. 
But  afterward,  when  the  troubles  cleared  up,  I 
joshed  him  about  his  incense  burning  and  he 
wouldn't  say  anything.  What  do  I  make  of  it? 

228 


THE  EVIL  SPIRIT  OF  THE  YANGTSE 

Well,  I  can't  call  it  religion.  I  would  say  that 
it  was  an  attempt  to  circumvent  bad  luck.  Luck 
is  an  odd  thing  anyway,  and  we  are  not  onto  its 
curves. 

For  example  this  incident  which  I  witnessed: 
The  Yangtse  was  boiling  viciously  below  Ye  Tan 
rapid.  The  wash  kicked  up  by  the  steamer's 
screws  had  kept  the  junks  and  market  boats 
in  its  wake  bobbing  all  along  the  route.  The 
wash  is  dreaded  by  all  the  boatmen.  Their 
invariable  tactics  consist  of  throwing  the  boat 
head-on  or  stern-on  into  the  wash  and  so  riding 
the  waves.  Just  below  Ye  Tan  an  old  man  at  the 
rudder  of  a  long  market  boat  full  of  pigs  swung 
his  prow  towards  the  steamer,  but  a  whirlpool 
in  the  rapids  whirled  him  viciously  out  of  posi- 
tion and  brought  him  broadside  on  just  as  the 
rolling  waves  caught  him.  Ordinarily  the 
waves  come  separately  with  an  interval  between. 
The  old  man  rode  the  first  wave  successfully. 
Then  the  second  and  third  waves  struck  his  boat 
virtually  together  and  he  and  his  two  sons  and 
his  cargo  went  quickly  down  beneath  the  surg- 
ing current.  Did  the  drowning  Chinese  blame 
the  steamer?  No.  Or  the  water?  No.  But 
the  two  waves  together  which  did  the  business 
— that  was  their  destruction,  and  that  was  the 
devil. 

229 


XXXIV 
THE  COURAGE  OF  CASTE  CONVICTION 

THIS  is  the  story  of  King  Chow.  I  do  not 
think  there  is  another  story  just  like  it  in 
the  world.  I  don't  believe  that  it  will  re- 
mind you  of  anything  you  have  ever  read  be- 
fore. As  a  rule  when  you  mention  something 
you  guess  to  be  novel  somebody  can  draw  a  par- 
allel instance  out  of  history.  I  am  content  to 
let  any  historian  do  his  worst.  I  am  satisfied 
that  the  experience  of  King  Chow,  as  the  French 
Commissioner  at  Shasi  told  it  to  me,  cannot  be 
matched. 

King  Chow  is  a  city  that  is  dying  of  dry  rot. 
It  is  situated  five  miles  from  Shasi.  Shasi  is  a 
river  port  built  on  a  long  dike  which  sweeps 
back  from  the  Yangtse  and  encircles  a  big  tract 
of  land  and  protects  it  from  overflow.  In  the 
midst  of  this  enclosed  area  stands  the  once  beau- 
tiful city  of  King  Chow.  It  dominated  this  part 
of  the  world  for  a  good  many  generations.  Its 
palaces  were  models  for  the  emulation  of  the 

230 


THE  COURAGE  OF  CASTE  CONVICTION 

rich  and  powerful  for  many  leagues;  its  treas- 
ures of  lacquer  and  filigreed  silver,  its  stores  of 
embroidered  fabrics  at  once  the  envy  and  the 
despair  of  the  great  valley  of  the  interior.  To 
all  the  population,  generation  after  generation, 
its  frowning  walls  spelled  power,  pride,  domin- 
ion and  divine  right.  For  King  Chow  was  the 
seat  of  the  Manchus.  When  the  strong  men 
from  the  north  took  possession  of  China  they 
established  their  own  garrisons  throughout  the 
country.  King  Chow  was  one  of  these.  The 
Manchu  clans,  called  "bannermen,"  prospered 
and  multiplied.  They  did  not  mix  with  the 
Chinese.  They  did  not  intermarry  with  the 
Chinese.  The  Chinese  were  the  subject  race. 
By  Manchu  edict,  the  Chinese  wore  pigtails,  and 
however  proud  a  Chinese  became  of  his  decora- 
tion no  Manchu  ever  let  him  forget  it  was  a 
badge  of  servitude.  And  if  a  Chinaman  cut  off 
his  pigtail,  the  Manchus  supplemented  the  job 
by  cutting  off  his  head.  The  Manchu  man  kept 
the  strapping  size  of  his  ancestors.  He  was 
bigger,  brawnier  than  the  natives — and  he 
never  was  and  never  could  be  Chinese.  He  is 
still  a  bigger  man  than  the  native  and  he  has 
refused  to  become  Chinese. 

The  Manchu  woman  aristocrat  was  undoubt- 
edly the  highest  caste  in  the  world.    Europe  has 

231 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

had  its  dukes  and  duchesses,  Turkey  its  khe- 
dives,  India  its  Brahmins  and  we  have  our  plu- 
tocrats. They  all  convince  themselves  in  a  very 
considerable  degree  that  they  are  superior  to 
the  run  of  humanity.  In  my  time  I  have  seen  a 
good  deal  of  them  first  and  last.  Either  on  thS 
score  of  money  or  manners  or  birth,  or  all  of 
them  together,  these  people  believe  they  are  of 
superior  clay.  Mostly  they  get  away  with  the 
proposition.  The  general  run  of  folk  acknowl- 
edge it.  But  the  Manchu  woman  had  all  the  es- 
tablished aristocrats  of  the  world  beaten.  She 
was,  first  of  all,  the  only  aristocrat  who  was 
superior  to  fashion.  Other  aristocrats  set  the 
fashion.  The  Manchu  woman  did  not.  She 
monopolized  it.  The  average  Chinese  girl  un- 
derwent the  tortures  of  feet  binding,  because 
without  the  small  feet,  her  chances  of  marriage 
were  reduced.  The  Manchu  woman  never  bound 
her  feet.  The  Chinese  woman  has  worn  ill- 
shapen  trousers  from  time  immemorial.  The 
Manchu  woman  kept  to  the  concealing  charm 
of  the  graceful  skirt.  The  Chinese  woman  has 
always  been  subjected  to  a  severely  trying  coif- 
fure, her  hair  being  plastered  down  over  her 
head  in  a  way  that  exaggerates  her  cheek  bones 
and  forehead.  The  Manchu  woman  affected  an 
elaborate  hair  dressing  that  made  her  face  both 

232 


THE  COURAGE  OF  CASTE  CONVICTION 

notable  and  strikingly  attractive  in  appearance. 

Both  Manchu  men  and  women  over  a  period 
of  three  hundred  years  compelled  popular  recog- 
nition of  their  supremacy.  They  forced  society 
to  support  them.  Every  Chinese  had  to  pay 
tribute  to  them  in  form  of  rice  and  tea  and 
other  valuables.  The  Manchus  had  a  supreme 
contempt  for  those  who  supported  them.  They 
would  not  mingle  with  their  subjects.  They 
lived  in  separate  cities  or  inside  separate  walls 
within  a  Chinese  city.  They  achieved  the  last 
word  in  caste. 

King  Chow  was  a  typical  Manchu  city.  When 
the  Manchus  came  first  to  King  Chow  they  were 
a  strong,  virile  race  of  men  and  women.  They 
had  the  brain  and  the  brawn  to  prove  their 
right  to  dominate.  They  built  their  palaces  and 
their  walls  and  ruled  the  country  round  about 
with  all  the  vigor  and  capacity  of  feudal  lords. 

Now  there  is  no  more  interesting  or  profitable 
spectacle  on  earth  than  the  dissipation  of  power 
through  maintenance  of  caste.  An  aristocrat 
to  establish  power  must  have  not  only  the  pre- 
sumption of  superiority,  but  also  the  ability  to 
prove  it.  But  it  is  one  of  the  curiosities  of  gov- 
ernment than  in  the  course  of  time  the  mere 
presumption  of  superiority  is  sufficient  to  keep 
an  aristocracy  going  long  after  its  ability  to 

233 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

prove  its  power  has  passed  away.  Indeed,  at 
last,  caste  the  world  over  is  a  presumption. 

Thus  as  generation  after  generation  of  Man- 
chus  at  King-Chow  came  and  went  the  Manchus 
held  themselves  to  be  superior  and  the  Chinese 
so  regarded  them.  For  humanity  has  strange 
measures  of  superiority.  For  one  thing,  the 
Manchus  lived  in  great  luxury.  They  did  not 
have  to  work;  in  fact,  they  regarded  labor  as 
dishonorable.  It  was  notable  with  them,  as  it 
is  with  all  aristocracies,  that  when  ability  to 
maintain  power  passed,  then  sense  of  superior- 
ity grew.  All  Manchu  boys  and  girls  were  born 
with  the  belief  that  they  were  superior.  Every 
young  Manchu  knew  that  he  was  not  of  common 
clay.  If  he  ever  had  the  energy  to  question  it, 
to  put  it  squarely  up  to  himself,  whether  physi- 
cally or  mentally  he  could  dominate  the  Chinese 
in  a  test  as  his  ancestors  had  done,  he  would 
have  put  aside  the  question  as  useless.  For  the 
fact  was  his  caste  did  the  business — it  did  not 
have  to  meet  the  test  because  it  was  never 
challenged. 

In  the  course  of  two  hundred  years  the  Man- 
chus of  King  Chow  became  a  community  of  rari- 
fied  humans.  They  were  exclusive,  proud  and 
many  of  them  rich.  Their  manners  were  those 
of  the  extremely  elegant,  their  lives  rounds  of 

234 


THE  COURAGE  OF  CASTE  CONVICTION 

unruffled  ease.  They  feared  no  one.  Indeed, 
fear  ceased  to  be  an  emotion  in  their  lives.  No 
one  would  attack  them.  No  one  would  dare. 
This  was  the  measure  of  their  preparedness — 
the  calm,  certain  assumption  that  thinking  you 
will  not  be  attacked  is  dead  sure  assurance  that 
you  will  not  be.  This  self-sufficiency  of  the 
Manchus  at  King  Chow  was  not  a  hundred  years 
old;  it  was  three  hundred  years  old;  not  the 
habit  of  five  generations,  but  of  fifteen. 

Then  the  revolution  struck.  In  the  winter 
of  1911-12  the  Chinese  empire  became  a  repub- 
lic. The  tribute  rice,  the  tribute  tea — the  sup- 
port of  the  public  ceased  in  a  day.  The  French 
aristocracy  went  out  in  an  earthquake.  The 
aristocracy  of  King  Chow  was  to  die  by  inches, 
as  fire  eats  its  way  through  punk.  The  Man- 
chus at  the  end  of  a  week  had  nothing  to  eat. 
In  the  midst  of  ancient  silk  and  costly  furs  and 
priceless  porcelain  of  antique  make,  here  was 
gaunt-eyed  Starvation  stalking  like  a  ghost.  So 
the  Manchus,  through  their  servants,  began  to 
sell  their  treasures.  The  Japanese  came  and 
picked  up  the  finest  of  the  mandarin  robes  and 
the  best  of  the  sables,  and  picked  them  up  for 
next  to  nothing.  One  by  one  the  rare  old  por- 
celain pieces  which  had  come  down  in  these  fam- 
ilies for  centuries  were  taken  out  of  the  homes 

235 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

and  disposed  of  to  fill  the  larders.  Each  week 
saw  the  rooms  a  little  more  bare,  a  little  more 
forbidding.  There  was  talk  of  the  Republic  hav- 
ing made  provision  for  the  Manchus.  No  such 
help  ever  reached  King  Chow.  As  the  months 
lengthened  into  years  even  the  tables  passed 
out  of  the  houses  and  finally  the  very  beds.  Then 
the  day  came  when  there  was  nothing  more  to" 
sell.  One  after  another  the  palaces  had  emp- 
tied themselves  of  their  ornaments,  furniture, 
everything.  The  Manchus  stood  around  as 
people  in  a  dream.  They  were  dazed — simply 
dazed  without  the  power  of  thought.  One  thing 
— they  did  not  go  to  work.  Their  kind  had  not 
worked  for  centuries.  Work  was  the  primal  sin 
and  the  ultimate  degradation.  They  would  not 
work,  and  they  did  not.  So  finally  they  began  to 
sell  their  palaces  brick  by  brick.  It  is  a  fine 
brick,  two  hundred  years  old  and  more,  and  it 
sold  readily.  Brick  by  brick  the  big  houses  have 
come  down  and  the  brick  has  been  carted  off 
until  now  King  Chow  is  a  pile  of  whitish  rub- 
bish, a  skeleton  behind  its  high,  strong  walls. 
Nearby  Shasi  grows  apace.  And  in  the  midst  of 
these  dust  heaps  at  King  Chow  are  little  wind 
shaken  mat  huts.  In  the  dirt  and  powdered 
mortar  live  the  Manchus.  Around  about  them 
are  the  ruins  of  King  Chow  and  in  their  hearts 

236 


THE  COURAGE  OF  CASTE  CONVICTION 

only  dumb  despair  and  mocking  memories. 

So  passes  King  Chow,  the  Manchu  city.  I 
saw  its  men,  big,  strapping  fellows  still,  with 
great  dignity  in  their  sad,  sunken  eyes.  I  saw 
its  women,  tall,  stately  women,  still  with  their 
elaborate  coiffures,  their  normal  feet,  their  long 
skirts,  sadder,  all  of  them,  in  their  bearing  than 
the  men.  The  bricks  of  their  homes  are  about 
all  gone.  And  after  they  are  gone — what?  As 
I  watched  their  tragic  figures  in  the  midst  of 
this  desolation,  destruction  and  decay,  I  asked 
myself  the  question  again  and  again.  After  the 
last  brick — what?  Work?  Never.  For  it  is 
something  to  be  said  of  any  real  aristocracy — 
it  will  die  with  the  courage  of  its  caste  convic- 
tions rather  than  violate  them. 


237 


XXXV 
A  CHINESE  GENERAL'S  JOB 

THE  poorest  job  on  earth  is  that  of  a  Chin- 
ese general.  The  chief  reason  for  this 
is  that  if  you  are  a  Chinese  general  you 
must  also  be  a  politician.  Nearly  all  the  main 
office  holders  in  China  are  generals.  This  is,  in 
part,  the  result  of  the  revolution.  It  naturally 
followed,  as  it  did  with  us  after  the  establish- 
ment of  the  United  States.  There  are  still  peo- 
ple down  in  Virginia  who  do  not  call  him  George 
Washington,  but  General  Washington.  In  fact, 
after  the  war  with  Great  Britain  the  military 
men  had  the  United  States  pretty  well  under 
their  thumbs  politically.  Indeed,  the  officers  of 
the  Revolution  in  America  formed  the  Order  of 
Cincinnati,  and  one  of  its  schemes  was  to  take 
over  the  offices.  A  lot  of  people  scented  in^it 
a  plan  to  set  up  a  blood  aristocracy,  and  Wash- 
ington himself  had  to  put  his  foot  down  on  it 
before  the  order  was  made  to  take  its  proper 
place  as  a  mere  fraternal  organization.  Then, 

238 


most  of  us  can  remember  that  for  thirty  years 
after  the  Civil  war  in  the  North  most  of  the 
men  who  held  office  had  been  military — Grant, 
Garfield,  Harrison  and  others.  And  even  later 
than  that — there  was  Roosevelt,  who  jumped 
off  San  Juan  Hill  into  the  White  House.  So  it 
is  a  perfectly  normal  evolution  for  the  Chinese 
general  to  become  a  president  or  a  governor. 

But  there  is  a  difference  in  China.  In  the 
United  States  the  general  who  became  a  gover- 
nor grew  so  busy  with  politics  that  he  forgot 
his  military  side.  He  sat  up  so  often  at  night 
worrying  over  who  should  be  coal  oil  inspector 
that  he  forgot  he  was  in  command  of  the  state 
militia.  Now  in  China  a  governor  cannot  for- 
get his  military  side.  In  the  first  place,  his 
troops  are  always  about  him  and  they  have  to 
be  paid,  and,  as  revenues  are  decidedly  slack 
most  of  the  time,  he  is  kept  busy  keeping  his 
own  army  in  humor.  In  the  second  place,  a 
rival  politician  may  have  an  army  of  his  own, 
and  so  needs  watching.  And,  in  the  third  place, 
there  may  be  a  turnover  in  Peking  which  will 
necessitate  the  general  making  up  his  mind 
whether  he  is  loyal  or  recalcitrant,  and  making 
it  up  in  a  second. 

I  am  going  to  give  two  instances  to  illustrate 
just  how  rocky  the  road  is  for  generals  in  China. 

239 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

The  first  is  the  story  of  General  Twang  Fang. 
Fang  was  beloved  by  the  missionaries  in  all  the 
Yangtse  valley.  When  the  dowager  empress 
made  up  her  mind  to  wipe  the  foreigners  out  of 
China  she  sent  a  telegram  to  every  governor 
along  the  Yangtse  which  read:  "Exterminate 
the  foreigners."  For  "exterminate"  Fang  read 
"protect"  and  the  missionaries  were  saved. 
Fang  was  governor  at  Nanking  at  the  time. 
When  the  revolution  broke  out,  in  1911,  it 
started  in  Szechuan,  and  the  Peking  govern- 
ment sent  Fang  with  his  2,500  soldiers  up  to 
Cheng-tu  to  stop  it.  He  never  got  to  Cheng-tu, 
for  when  he  reached  Chung-King  he  heard  that 
the  revolutionists  had  captured  Hankow,  down 
the  river.  So  he  was  cut  off.  He  couldn't  go 
forward  and  he  couldn't  go  back.  He  made  up 
his  mind  to  cut  loose  from  his  troops,  who  were 
disaffected,  and  escape  to  Peking  in  disguise. 
Then  he  reconsidered  and  decided  to  offer  his 
troops  $25,000  to  help  him  make  his  way  out  of 
the  country.  They  demanded  to  see  the  actual 
money.  Of  course,  he  didn't  have  it,  and  they 
refused.  He  went  back  to  the  idea  of  disguise. 
As  he  was  slipping  out  the  gate  of  the  city  of 
Tzu  Chow  he  was  recognized  by  his  soldiers. 
They  dragged  him  into  a  temple  and  commanded 
him  to  kneel.  Fang  was  a  Manchu  and  proudly 

240 


A  CHINESE  GENERAL'S  JOB 

refused  to  kneel.  They  slashed  his  head  off  as 
he  stood. 

This  is  the  second  instance.  When  Yuan 
Shih  Kai  concluded  that  he  was  cut  out  for  a 
king  he  stationed  his  own  friends  around  through 
the  provinces  in  charge  of  the  troops  and  in  the 
governors'  palaces.  Then  the  revolution  broke 
out  again,  and  although  Yuan  Shih  Kai  saved  his 
neck  by  dying  with  an  opportuneness  that  sug- 
gested suicide,  but  wasn't,  the  revolutionists  in 
different  provinces  went  after;  Yuan's  friends 
with  a  vengeance.  One  of  his  friends  was  Gen- 
eral Kiang  Pei  Kun,  in  charge  of  the  troops  in 
Chang-Sha.  The  soldiers  of  Hunan  dashed  into 
Chang-Sha  and  cleaned  out  the  other  side.  They 
killed,  burned  and  looted.  All  authority  went 
to  smash  and  people  with  means  either  fled  with 
their  wealth  or  concealed  it.  General  Kiang 
Pei  Kun  took  to  a  small  boat,  and  in  the  disguise 
of  a  labourer  of  the  lowest  caste  made  down  the 
river.  I  am  going  to  let  Captain  Reid  of  the 
Tung-Wo,  one  of  the  best-known  captains  of  the 
Yangtse  and  one  of  the  best  fellows  in  the  world 
tell  the  rest. 

"You  see,"  said  Captain  Reid  to  me,  "the  lid 
had  slipped  off  hell  and  the  pot  tipped  over  in 
Chang-Sha.  They  were  murdering  'em  like 
sticking  pigs  in  autumn.  And  frying  their  liv- 

241 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

ers — d'ye  see?  Frying  'em  like  beef  steak  and 
eating  of  'em.  I  was  alongside  the  hulk — the 
wharf,  d'ye  see  ?  I  was  there  for  the  company — 
for  passengers.  Ye  see  that.  And  we  were  get- 
ting passengers — swarms  of  'em,  like  ants  on 
their  busy  day.  They  came  bundlin'  over  the 
sides  with  their  money  in  boxes,  baskets,  satch- 
els— everything — until  we  were  stocked  up  like 
a  blooming  money  vault  in  a  Shanghai  bank. 
And  what  do  you  think?  The  commissioner  of 
the  port  sent  me  word  that  I  better  pull  off  from 
alongside  the  hulk — that  he  couldn't  be  respon- 
sible. The  rioting  soldiers  wanted  my  passen- 
gers. He  sent  me  that  word,  d'ye  see?  Me 
pull  out?  Well,  I  put  on  my  pistols — not  where 
you  could  see  'em,  but  I  put  'em  on — kind  of 
under  my  coat-tails  like — d'ye  see,  and  I  ran  up 
the  union  jack.  And  I  stayed  there  all  night — 
with  the  shooting  and  burning  and  frying  of 
livers  raging  all  around  and  passengers  with 
money  bags  tumbling  onto  the  ship  all  the  time. 
I  was  there  for  passengers,  d'ye  see?  I  got  out 
at  five  the  next  morning,  and  forty-five  miles  up 
the  river  we  took  on  another  refugee  with  a  bag 
of  gold.  And  the  coolie  on  the  sampan,  he  sort 
of  whispered  to  the  comprador  and  the  compra- 
dor come  to  me  and  say  that  the  general  is  up 
the  river,  all  in.  So  I  haul  about,  and  about 

242 


A  CHINESE  GENERAL'S  JOB 

two  miles  up  the  river  we  come  alongside  the 
general  in  a  sampan — all  in — as  dirty  as  a  beg- 
gar and  trembling  all  over  like  a  cat  in  a  cold 
kitchen.  And  we  hauled  him  aboard,  the  poor 
starving  wretch,  and  he  flipped  and  flapped  and 
fell  over  on  the  deck.  And  the  Chinese  took 
him  down  and  doused  him  into  the  bathtub,  and 
he  came  to,  dazed  sort  of  like,  and  guessed  he 
was  saved.  He  had  wandered  about  four  days 
without  food.  We  take  the  lot  to  Hankow.  And 
I  think  no  more  about  the  whole  blooming  busi- 
ness, not  me,  until  one  day  a  Chinaman  came 
bowing  and  bobbing  alongside  and  gave  me  this 
watch  and  this  chain — it's  Chinese  gold — ye  can 
see  for  yourself — and  the  two  English  sover- 
eigns a-dangling  to  it — not  bad — don't  you 
think  so? — and  this  letter.  Will  you  read  that 
now?  Take  the  spelling  and  all — it's  better  that 
way: 

"  'Hankow,  August  12,  1916. 
"  'Dear  Sir — In  presenting  you  these  few 
lines,  I  express  my  hearty  thanks  for  your  kind- 
ness in  saving  my  life  when  I  was  under  the 
chase  of  the  Hunan  soldiers  in  Hunan.  It  is  un- 
doubt  that  my  life  would  lose  if  you  didn't  turn 
your  kind  hand  and  stop  the  boat.  I  suppose 
you  know  that  I  am  rather  a  man  of  poverty,  so 
it  is  hard  for  me  to  express  my  thanks  substan- 

243 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATECRAFT 

tically,  but  I  should  remember  your  kind  act  in 
heart  and  try  to  repay  my  thanks  in  time  when 
I  can  afford  to  do. 

"  'I  am  faithfully  yours, 

"  'KIANG  PEI  KUN.'  " 

It  isn't  much  of  a  note  from  a  literary  view- 
point. But  it  is  a  fine  picture  of  genuine  grati- 
tude. And,  moreover,  it  is  a  bit  of  a  document 
in  the  history  of  troublous  times  in  a  young 
republic. 


244 


XXXVI 
THE  FICTION  OF  ROYAL  BLOOD 

STANDING  in  the  midst  of  the  splendors  of 
the  Forbidden  City,  Peking,  I  had  some 
thoughts  on  history's  most  colossal  con- 
game — royal  blood.  But  before  I  get  to  that  I 
want  to  take  up  the  Forbidden  City  itself.  Just 
now  I  used  the  word  "splendors"  with  care.  For 
the  most  part  buildings  in  China  are  shabby  and 
dilapidated.  The  used-up,  pealed-off  appearance 
of  the  country  persists  up  to  the  very  walls  of 
the  Forbidden  City.  But  it  ceases  there.  The 
sacred  city  itself  comes  very  near  being  a  real 
sure-enough  dream — like  you  used  to  fancy 
heaven  was  like  when  you  accepted  the  pearly 
gates  as  an  architectural  fact. 

Now  this  may  be  due  to  the  manner  in  which 
you  approach  it.  You  first  strike  the  Chinese 
City,  with  its  dull  fifty-foot  wall.  The  Chinese 
City  is  big  and  uninteresting  compared  to  the 
interior  Chinese  towns,  like  Chung-King.  Then 
you  get  into  the  Tartar  City,  which  is  scattered. 

245 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATECRAFT 

That  is,  it  is  full  of  big  empty  spaces,  used  for 
nothing  in  particular.  It  would  be  no  sight  at 
all  if  its  streets  did  not  show  multitudes  of  cam- 
els, donkeys,  two-wheeled  prairie  schooners, 
wheelbarrows  and  queer  people,  with  everybody 
muffled  up  to  their  eyes  in  furs  and  rags — for 
it  is  winter.  And  yet  you  object  to  the  Chinese 
spread  out  so.  They  look  better  huddled — like 
rabbits.  Indeed,  you  find  it  easy  to  put  Peking 
down  as  a  glaring  over-advertised  fake  before 
you  get  to  the  Imperial  City,  which  is  inside  the 
Tartar  City  and  not  much  better  than  the 
Chinese  city.  And  when  you  reach  the  forbid- 
den city  and  pay  your  thirty  cents  to  get  in 
— for  it  is  still  forbidden — you  are  discounting 
every  tale  you  ever  heard  about  it  to  beat  the 
band.  This  impression  is  helped  out  some  by 
the  fact  that  people  are  skating  on  the  big  moat 
which  surrounds  the  sacred  enclosure.  But  once 
inside  you  change  your  mind.  You  find  your- 
self in  a  big  enclosure,  crowded  with  color.  The 
roofs  are  a  glistening  yellow,  the  walls  blue, 
green  and  circus-wagon  red,  and  in  front  of  most 
of  the  palaces  are  meshes  of  white  marble  balus- 
trades. I  say  meshes  because  they  are  just 
tangles  of  carved  white  marble,  serving  no  pur- 
pose whatsoever  except  for  ornamentation.  But 
they  do  that.  The  eye  is  lost  in  following  their 

246 


THE  FICTION  OF  ROYAL  BLOOD 

curves    and    a    fairy-like    effect    is    achieved. 

I  paid  one  dollar  to  go  into  one  of  the  palaces 
and  look  over  the  things  which  were  saved  out 
of  the  royal  palaces  when  the  dynasty  collapsed. 
The  whole  array  of  jeweled  boxes,  jade  and  por- 
celain and  bronze  ornaments  and  robes  mount- 
ing into  the  thousands  are  gorgeous  beyond 
compare.  The  crown  jewels,  for  instance,  in 
the  Tower  of  London  look  tawdry  compared  to 
them.  There  is  no  such  beautiful  handicraft 
anywhere  else  on  earth.  The  looters  in  1900 
did  not  get  a  fraction  of  it.  Now  you  see  no 
hint  of  all  this  fascinating  art  anywhere  else 
in  China.  The  beautiful  things  in  rich  men's 
houses  are  poor  at  best.  They  are  truly  regal 
here.  And  the  palaces,  all  furbished  up  as  part 
of  Yuan  Shih  Kai's  design  to  be  king,  are  a  fit- 
ting jewel  box. 

I  now  come  to  the  royal  blood  thought.  This 
Forbidden  City  with  its  beautiful  contents  was 
the  habitation  of  a  royal  family.  It  had  become 
so  exclusive  that  it  shut  itself  absolutely  in  and 
the  world  absolutely  out.  When  the  emperor 
sallied  forth  the  population  outside  poked  its, 
nose  in  the  dirt  and  dared  not  look  upon  him. 
Through  the  influence  of  the  times  this  dynasty 
all  but  petered  out.  The  breath  of  revolt  swept 
it  away  as  a  cobweb  is  brushed  aside  with  a 

247 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

a  careless  or  casual  movement  of  the  hand. 
How  did  it  ever  maintain  itself  so  long?  By 
the  world's  weak  subscription  to  the  aforesaid 
greatest  con-game  in  history — royal  blood.  The 
subscription  is  as  old  as  the  world  itself,  and 
no  race  is  free  from  it.  Most  of  the  world  has 
been  time  out  of  mind  monarchical.  But  there 
was  really  less  use  for  a  monarchy  here  in 
China  than  aywhere  else  in  the  world.  For 
while  the  Chinese  are  homogeneous,  their  eigh- 
teen provinces  are  virtually  autonomous.  The 
general  run  of  Chinese  knew  personally  no  gov- 
ernment except  the  local  authorities.  That  gov- 
ernment did  not  give  security  to  life  and  prop- 
erty. It  existed  for  the  very  fundamental  pur- 
pose of  taxation,  to  give  someone  the  job  of  col- 
lecting a  tax  and  paying  him  for  doing  it,  which 
is  a  very  complete  definition  of  the  ordinary 
application  of  the  doctrine  of  state's  rights.  Pre- 
sumably the  autonomous  provinces  of  China 
banded  together  under  a  central  government  at 
Peking  and  under  a  monarchy  with  the  idea  of 
national  strength  through  union.  But  the  cen- 
tral government  at  Peking,  within  the  memory 
of  man,  protected  nothing.  It  has  been  succes- 
sively slapped,  insulted  and  preyed  upon  from 
the  outside  for  the  last  hundred  years.  It  is 
the  veriest  fiction  that  the  central  government 

248 


in  China  was  necessary  to  speak  with  authority 
for  all  the  constituent  states.  So  far  as  the  out- 
side world  was  concerned,  Peking  had  no  author- 
ity worthy  the  name.  Witness  the  British, 
French,  Japanese,  Russian  and  German  occu- 
pations of  Chinese  territory,  a  thing  no  respon- 
sible government  could  tolerate  and  live. 

No,  the  truth  is  that  monarchy  existed  in 
China,  not  from  the  necessities  of  centralized 
government,  but  because  of  humanity's  weak- 
ness for  kings — the  belief  that  a  quart  or  two 
of  exclusive  red  fluid  in  the  veins  of  a  certain 
family  endows  its  members  with  privileges  be- 
yond those  given  ordinary  clay.  It  is  a  great 
fraud,  this  historical  fake,  when  you  come  to 
think  of  it.  For  centuries  the  Chinese  people 
have  been  industrious,  temperate,  frugal  and 
dirt  poor.  They  have  dragged  from  their  fer- 
tile soil  mountains  of  wealth,  but  they  have 
neither  retained  it  nor  enjoyed  it.  A  wise, 
strong  central  government  would  have  enforced 
scientific  increases  in  the  production  of  that 
wealth  and  a  just  distribution  of  it,  and  exer- 
cised for  all  the  people  a  protection  of  their  nat- 
ional accumulations  against  the  invaders  of  the 
outside  world.  A  dynasty,  exercising  such  bene- 
ficent rule  could  justly  call  for  loyalty.  But  the 
people  of  China  remained  loyal  to  the  dynasty 

249 


SUPERSTITION  AND  STATESCRAFT 

without  any  of  these  benefits.  They  starved 
and  struggled  along  in  their  dirty  hovels,  shiv- 
ering in  their  rags  in  winter  and  blistering  half 
clad  in  summer,  beasts  of  burden  most  of  them, 
weary  and  heavy-laden  through  the  whole  of 
their  allotted  span.  The  one  bright,  shining 
spot  in  their  vast  empire  was  the  Forbidden 
City.  Here  the  great  palaces  shouldered  their 
generous  roofs  into  the  sky.  Here  were  shim- 
mering lakes  and  spreading  trees;  here  art  and 
ease,  beauty  and  luxury,  jeweled  case  and  lac- 
quered chest,  silk  so  sheer  it  would  tear  at  the 
touch,  embroideries  heavy  in  richness  as  lead  is 
in  weight — here  was  royalty. 

There  has  not  been  a  Chinese  emperor  in  the 
last  two  hundred  years  who  stripped  to  the  skin 
was  not  as  any  other  Oriental  of  his  breed.  In 
muscular  tissue  the  average  emperor  could  not 
compare  with  the  average  coolie  perhaps,  or  in 
heart  action,  and  in  brain  capacity  there  were 
tens  of  thousands  in  his  empire  who  could  sur- 
pass him.  But  he  had  one  thing  they  did  not 
have;  the  working  plans  of  the  greatest  con- 
game  in  history — the  claim  to  royal  blood.  His 
father  was  a  king  before  him — a  natural  fact  of 
infinitesimal  account,  but  a  psychological  asser- 
tion of  world-wide  and  age-old  potency.  He  was 
of  royal  blood:  therefore  the  world  of  men  who 

250 


THE  FICTION  OF  ROYAL  BLOOD 

toil  and  moil  were  to  surrender  all  reason  and 
self-interest  that  they  might  the  better  exalt 
him. 

A  set  of  democratic  dreamers  pricked  the  bub- 
ble in  China.  A  touch — and  the  revolution  of 
Dr.  Sun  and  his  crowd  was  just  that — and  the 
fake  exploded. 

So  the  Forbidden  City,  as  I  wandered  through 
its  solitudes,  seemed  a  magnificent  monument 
to  a  dream  of  power  to  which  four  hundred 
million  drudging  men  and  women  subscribed  as 
something  real,  when  in  truth  it  was  a  phantom. 


251 


xxxvn 

A  CHINESE  PRESIDENT 

IT  was  Carey,  the  young  American  railroad- 
builder  in  China,  who  arranged  my  call  pn 
the  president  of  China.  I  went  over  to 
Carey's  home,  and  President  Li  Yuan  Hung  sent 
his  chief  secretary,  Mr.  Kuo  Tai-chi,  for  us.  Kuo 
was  educated  in  America  and  shows  it. 

At  the  palace  gate,  plump!  dropped  the  guns 
of  the  soldiers.  But  Kuo  waved  them  aside. 
The  soldiers  brought  their  heels  together  with  a 
click  and  stood  at  rigid  attention. 

"See  that  gate?"  said  Kuo.  "It's  got  a  story. 
Everything  around  here  has  a  story.  Every 
foot  of  this  ground  simply  bubbles  up  history. 
Emperor  Chen  once  captured  a  Mohammedan 
princess  and  brought  her  here  as  a  wife.  She 
wept  and  wept  for  her  native  land — all  that  sort 
of  thing,  you  know.  Now,  right  outside  here 
was  a  big  Mohammedan  camp,  and  the  emperor 
built  this  gate  so  the  princess  could  sit  in  the 
upper  story  and  be  relieved  of  her  homesickness 

252 


A  CHINESE  PRESIDENT 

by  looking  at  her  countrymen  in  the  camp." 
We  wandered  on  through  a  maze  of  buildings 
ablaze  with  imperial  yellow.  There  was  one  ex- 
ception, a  solid  white  structure,  built  square  and 
looking  like  a  family  vault.  This  was  part  of 
Yuca  Shih  Kai's  imperial  dream.  He  had  it  built 
and  placed  within  it  a  gold  box  containing  three 
names  from  which  were  to  be  selected  his  suc- 
cessor— easy  kind  of  election  for  a  young  re- 
public. Only  two  men  know  who  were  so  pre- 
ferred, and  they  won't  tell.  The  three  were 
probably  Yuan's  sons. 

Once  we  stopped  and  went  into  the  ancient 
throne  room.  It  was  heaped  with  old  furniture 
and  beautiful  screens.  Some  of  the  furniture 
was  broken  and  the  whole  attic-like  look  of  the 
place  spelled  ruin. 

President  Li  proved  to  be  a  very  heavy  man 
with  a  large  square  head,  covered  with  short 
wiry  hair  which  comes  well  down  in  front  and 
close  up  to  big,  rather  flat  ears.  His  jaw  was 
big,  his  cheeks  heavy,  but  firm.  He  has  a  mili- 
tary moustache,  rather  scant,  as  you  often  see 
in  Chinese,  not  thick  as  you  would  find  it  in  a 
westerner.  He  has  a  firm  mouth  and  a  good 
nose.  His  predominating  features  were  his 
eyes.  They  were  the  lustrous,  gentle,  kind 
which  are  capable  of  showing  great  sorrow  or 

253 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

great  anger,  but  which  normally  carry  kincQI- 
ness.  He  was  clad  in  a  buff  uniform  with  red 
facings.  The  epaulets  were  of  red  and  carried 
three  stars.  He  appeared  as  a  soldier  pure  and 
simple,  and  looked  a  man  ready  to  take  to  the 
field  without  having  to  pick  up  anything  but  his 
sword.  His  office  was  furnished  with  a  big  desk 
and  a  lot  of  red  morocco  chairs  and  a  big  sofa, 
also  in  red  morocco.  The  carpet  was  a  plain 
Chinese  rug.  The  hangings  were  a  blue  bro- 
cade and  rather  subdued  in  effect.  Two  boys  in 
blue  uniforms,  after  the  fashion  of  bell-boy 
uniforms  in  American  hotels,  served  tea,  which 
no  one  drank,  the  president,  in  his  interest  in 
the  conversation,  evidently  forgetting  it. 

President  Li  speaks  some  English.  However, 
we  did  our  talking  through  Mr.  Kuo.  I  would 
make  a  statement  and  then  Kuo  would  come 
back  with  the  president's  answer,  as  "His  ex- 
cellency says  that  in  what  you  say  of  China  you 
have  hit  the  nail  on  the  head." 

We  talked  a  little  of  everything — about  the 
needs  of  a  stable  currency,  the  advantage  of  a 
uniform  educational  system  and  above  all  the" 
great  benefits  which  follow  railroad  construc- 
tion. 

President  Li  said  that  China's  need  was  ready 
money  and  the  consequent  necessity  of  convey- 

254 


A  CHINESE  PRESIDENT 

ing  to  foreign  financiers  that  China  was  a  splen- 
did security.  "We  have  the  smallest  national 
debt  of  all  the  larger  nations— only  $200,000,- 
000.  Our  people  are  universally  industrious  and 
temperate.  As  you  have  seen  for  yourself  in 
your  journeys  over  China,  the  potential  possi- 
bilities of  China  in  agriculture,  in  minerals  and 
in  manufacturing  power  are  unlimited.  But  to 
develop  these  resources,  modern  appliances  must 
be  requisitioned,  and  it  takes  money  to  initiate 
these  appliances.  China  will  pay  for  the  money 
she  obtains.  She  has  always  paid.  She  has 
never  repudiated." 

I  told  him  that  so  far  as  the  United  States 
was  concerned,  if  money  was  forthcoming  to 
China  in  the  shape  of  loans,  public  sentiment 
would  have  a  lot  to  do  with  it.  For  while  the 
bankers  made  the  loans,  the  people  themselves, 
by  investing,  sustained  the  bankers  in  their 
loans  and  that  a  favorable  public  sentiment 
made,  therefore,  for  easier  transactions.  I  con- 
tended that  basically  the  regard  for  China  by 
America  now  rested  upon  a  sentimental  hope  of 
the  permanency  of  the  republican  government 
in  China.  I  told  him  we  did  not  want  any  part 
of  their  land,  but  we  did  want  a  chance  to  trade 
with  China  in  a  fair  field  and  no  favor. 

This  brought  from  the  president  a  warm  ex- 
255 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

pression  of  the  feeling  of  friendship  in  China 
for  America.  It  was  genuine  and  not  perfunc- 
tory in  the  least. 

We  went  on  discussing  the  relations  of  the 
two  countries  in  this  way  for  a  long  time.  As 
the  president  talked  he  kept  fingering  the  table- 
cloth in  front  of  him,  turning  it  over  and  over 
in  his  big  rufous  hands  with  just  that  show  of 
the  embarrassment  you  would  expect  in  a  sol- 
dier. 

When  he  had  concluded  the  president  arose 
and  went  over  to  his  desk  and  pulled  out  two 
photographs  of  himself — one  showed  him  in 
evening  clothes,  the  other  in  the  full  regalia  of 
a  general.  He  carefully  wrote  his  name  in  Eng- 
lish across  the  one  I  said  I  wanted — the  one  in 
military  attire — and  armed  with  it  I  shook 
hands  with  the  president  of  the  Oriental  Repub- 
lic and  departed.  Night  had  come  down  in  the 
palace  and  the  soldiers  stepped  closer  as  we 
passed  and  studied  us  and  then  stood  at  salute. 
It  was  very,  very  quiet  except  for  the  rustle  of 
birds  over-head.  I  had  but  one  thought  as  I 
wormed  my  way  back  to  the  gate  of  the  Moham- 
medan princess — a  hope  that  the  Republic  of 
China  would  last,  and  that  the  blessings  and 
benefactions  of  democracy  would  turn  to  gold 
the  industry,  the  temperance,  the  infinite  good 

256 


A  CHINESE  PRESIDENT 

nature  of  this  ancient  and  historic  people. 
But  for  the  moment  the  hope  remained  only 
a  hope  and  fell  far  short  of  a  conviction.  For 
the  way  of  liberty  in  these  oriental  windings  is 
certain  to  be  difficult.  And  the  palaces  in  the 
night  about  me  exhaled  uncertainty.  For  in 
this  spot  the  oriental  romantic  thing  had  hap- 
pened yesterday;  it  could  happen  tomorrow. 
The  whole  atmosphere  vibrated  with  what  had 
been,  what  was  now  afoot,  and  what  was  com- 
ing, not  in  the  order  of  designing  men,  but  ac- 
cording to  the  Arabian  Night  fancies  of  a 
strange  civilization, 


2?7 


XXXVIII 
THE  DEAD  DYNASTY 

I  WISH  to  transfer  to  you,  for  a  few  min- 
utes, the  atmosphere  of  China.  A  friend 
took  me  to  the  summer  palace,  which  is 
about  ten  miles  out  of  Peking.  It  is  a  park 
about  three  miles  square.  It  is  literally  smoth- 
ered in  buildings  of  palatial  proportions,  a  riot 
of  colored  porcelain  highly  glazed,  the  buildings 
set  around  a  huge  artificial  lake  dotted  with 
decorative  islands  with  a  background  of  decora- 
tive mountains.  The  walks  are  covered  with 
decorative  arbors.  In  the  lake  rests  a  marble 
barge.  That  is  one  picture  to  keep  in  mind. 

Here  is  another.  About  a  mile  away  is  an- 
other huge  enclosure  which  is  full  of  heaps  of 
ugly  stone  and  broken  brick,  hummocks  of  mor- 
tar, clusters  of  drunken  pillars,  leaning  every 
which  way,  fragments  of  broken  marble  stair- 
ways that  start  out  of  rubbish  and  end  in  rub- 
bish. This  is  the  old  summer  palace. 
This  old  summer  palace  was  a  marvel.  Many 

258 


THE  DEAD  DYNASTY 

years  ago,  the  French  nation  sent  a  troop  of 
soldiers  to  Peking  to  proffer  France's  friendship 
to  China.  The  Chinese  seized  the  soldiers, 
stripped  them  and  then  sliced  them  with  sharp 
knives  all  over.  Having  done  this,  they  tied 
the  mutilated  men  out  in  the  sun  and  let  the 
flies  eat  at  the  wounds  until  the  men  died. 
France  sent  another  expedition  and  among 
other  things  destroyed  this  summer  palace  with 
a  savage  vengeance  that  scarcely  left  one  stone 
upon  another,  a  vengeance  so  complete  that 
when  the  late  Dowager  Empress  decided  to  take 
the  money  which  China  had  set  aside  to  build 
a  navy  and  build  a  new  summer  palace  she  had 
to  select  a  new  site. 

The  new  summer  palace  eventually  cost  the 
Empress  Dowager  and  her  dynasty  the  crown, 
and  established  the  Republic.  For  when  Japan 
pounced  upon  China  in  1894,  the  Chinese  navy 
crumpled  up  like  tissue  paper,  and  the  prestige 
of  China,  and  of  the  Dowager,  went  glimmering 
and  the  Republic  followed. 

Here,  then,  is  a  palace  which  played  a  major 
part  in  the  history  of  the  Orient.  The  only  in- 
timation of  the  personality  which  was  responsi- 
ble for  it  is  found  in  one  of  the  yellow  palaces. 
My  friend  led  me  through  a  network  of  covered 
walks,  in  and  out  of  a  wilderness  of  yellow 

259 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

houses  to  a  big  glass  door,  and,  parting  a  pair 
of  curtains,  showed  me  a  big  oil  painting  of  the 
empress.  This  image  reigns  in  this  deserted 
fairyland,  as  silent  and  as  inscrutable  as  a  sleep- 
ing princess. 

I  had  seen  most  of  the  sights  of  the  Chinese 
capital.  I  had  been  to  the  Bell  Tower  and  to 
the  Drum  Tower,  where  they  tap  curfew  at  nine 
o'clock  on  a  monster  bass  drum.  I  had  visited 
the  sleeping  Buddha  in  the  Lama  temple,  a  fig- 
ure 70  feet  high,  carved  out  of  a  single  tree 
trunk;  also  the  Temple  of  Confucius,  where  the 
sayings  of  that  sage  are  preserved  in  carvings 
on  stone  tablets,  and  the  Hall  of  Classics,  where 
the  emperor  used  to  bestow  diplomas  on  the 
prize-winners  in  the  national  examinations.  I 
had  gone  to  the  Temple  of  Heaven  and  stood  in 
the  Center  of  the  Universe,  where  the  Emperors 
all  stood  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  and  re- 
ceived their  order  from  celestial  guides,  but  no 
sight  in  Peking  had  impressed  me  so  much  as 
this  silent  simulacrum  of  the  first  woman  of  the 
East,  sitting  in  the  midst  of  this  deserted  grand- 
eur. 

The  Empress  was  a  concubine.  But  there  is 
no  sensuality  in  her  straight  thin  lips,  her  thin, 
long  face,  her  calm  eyes  or  her  high,  well-shaped 
brow.  There  is  no  line  there  which  spells  any- 

260 


THE  DEAD  DYNASTY 

thing  but  possession  of  unchallenged  sover- 
ereignty — and  craft,  not  for  defense,  but  for  at- 
tack. First  and  last  she  came  into  contact  with 
a  great  many  people.  She  could  be  bamboozled, 
but  it  took  an  artist  to  do  it.  When  the  Boxers 
prepared  to  wipe  out  all  the  foreigners  in  Peking 
they  had  to  have  her  consent.  To  get  it  they 
contended  to  her  that  by  taking  a  certain  oath 
the  Boxers  were  immune  to  gunfire.  Bullets 
would  not  pierce  them.  The  old  Empress  said 
if  this  were  true,  she  was  for  the  proposition. 
She  ordered  a  trial  in  her  preserves.  A  row  of 
Boxers  were  brought  before  her.  The  soldiers 
fired.  The  Boxers  were  uninjured.  The  Dow- 
ager was  ostensibly  convinced.  But  she  called 
in  an  American  who  was  counsel  to  her,  a 
man  still  living  in  Peking,  and  told  him  her  expe- 
rience. "Let  me  do  the  shooting,"  said  the 
American.  The  Empress  ordered  the  Boxers 
back  for  a  second  trial.  But  they  fled. 

However,  she  could  be  worked.  There  was  a 
rich  Chinese  statesman  named  Hsu  Chang,  a 
good  deal  of  a  tightwad.  He  was  an  enemy  of 
Yuan  Shih  Kai,  who  schemed  Hsu  out  of  the 
favor  of  the  Empress.  Hsu  tried  to  see  the 
Empress,  but  could  not.  He  bribed  the  door- 
keeper of  the  palace  and  the  eunuchs,  but  he 
could  not  reach  the  Dowager.  She  needed  the 

261 


man's  friendship  and  influence,  and  would  have 
been  glad  to  have  attached  him  to  her.  But 
Yuan,  the  Empress'  advisor,  planned  to  keep  him 
out  of  favor.  Finally  Hsu  got  word  to  the  Em- 
press that  he  wanted  to  present  her  a  sum  of 
money  in  person.  It  was  a  master-stroke,  for 
the  old  woman  was  mercenary.  Yuan  could  not 
escape  the  duty  of  presenting  the  proposition. 
But  he  bethought  him  of  a  trick,  a  low-down, 
political  trick.  He  knew  Hsu  was  a  tightwad. 
So  he  went  to  the  Dowager  and  said :  "Hsu,  the 
rich  man,  desires  to  present  $200,000  to  your 
majesty.  Shall  I  admit  him?"  The  Dowager 
ordered  him  admitted  at  once.  Hsu  came  in,  all 
smiles,  cocky  and  triumphant,  and  presented  her 
with  $20,000.  And  when  she  found  it  was 
$20,000  instead  of  $200,000,  her  wrath  was  inde- 
scribable, and  Hsu  found  himself  still  further 
in  disgrace. 

People  in  China  generally  regard  the  Empress 
as  the  most  able  of  recent  personages  in  Ori- 
ental history.  But  with  all  her  ability  she  re- 
mained Chinese.  She  sacrificed  the  armament 
needs  of  her  country  to  satisfy  a  fancy.  With 
all  the  world  snarling  a  menace  around  her,  the 
Empress  dreamed  of  marble  stairways,  and  lac- 
quered lattices  and  vistas  vanishing  in  sheer 
loveliness.  A  rattling  good  navy  would  have 

262 


THE  DEAD  DYNASTY 

put  China  and  herself  at  the  forefront  in  1894, 
and  changed  the  history  of  the  world.  A  sum- 
mer palace  merely  fed  the  idle  fancy  of  an  old 
woman.  But  she  decided  on  the  summer  palace, 
not  because  she  was  a  woman,  but  because  she 
was  Chinese. 

That  brings  me  to  the  Chinese  atmosphere,  or 
rather  a  close  view  of  the  summer  palace, 
which  my  friend  and  I  made,  brought  me  to  the 
Chinese  atmosphere.  The  stonework  and  porce- 
lain portions  of  the  palace  are  as  stable  and 
beautiful  in  their  suggestion  of  permanence  as 
anything  could  be.  The  carpenter  work  is  about 
the  rottenest  I  ever  saw.  The  woodwork  is 
everywhere  falling  apart.  It  was  a  botched  job 
in  the  beginning  covered  up  with  much  bright 
paint.  A  few  years  comparatively  have  re- 
vealed its  frauds,  and  a  few  years  more  will 
effect  its  ruin.  If  one  can  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  a  majestic  porcelain  tower  built  to  stand 
forever,  and  at  its  side  a  veranda  with  gaping 
joints  and  sagging  rafters,  then  one  can  get  the 
Chinese  atmosphere. 

Because  the  Chinese  atmosphere  is  made  up 
of  just  these  contrasts — magnificent  conceptions, 
partly  carried  out,  partly  contradicted — a  mix- 
ture of  dream  and  nightmare — a  medley  of 
beautiful  harmonies  and  a  busy  afternoon  in  a 

263 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

boiler  factory — a  touch  of  the  essence  of  attar 
of  roses  and  the  backyard  of  a  glue  factory  on 
a  warm  day. 

I  stood  in  the  sunlight  with  my  friend  and 
took  consideration  of  my  surroundings.  Far  off 
I  could  hear  the  hoarse  honk  of  a  Ford,  and  also 
the  long,  clear,  sweet  note  of  the  bronze  trumpet 
blown  by  a  ragged  tinker.  In  the  distance  I  saw 
a  cavalcade  of  camels,  on  their  way  to  Mongolia, 
just  as  you  see  them  in  Biblical  pictures,  and 
beyond  them  a  group  of  American  locomotives 
smoking  up  a  roundhouse.  Before  me  was  the 
portrait  of  a  shrewd,  beautiful,  capable  woman, 
stronger  than  Esther,  or  Zenobia,  or  Cleopatra, 
in  robes  of  incomparable  fineness;  beyond  me  a 
road  carrying  traffic  that  might  have  passed 
through  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  in  the  day  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  not  have  attracted  notice.  I 
took  out  my  kodak  and  snapped  my  friend.  And 
It  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  standing  on  the  sheer 
edge  of  the  world  and  watching  the  waters  of 
the  West  meet  the  waters  of  the  East — the 
breath  of  antiquity  fanning  the  cheeks  of  the 
present — the  image  of  Oriental  aristocracy  and 
the  image  of  Occidental  democracy  blending 
into  an  indescribable  something  which  was  at 
once  new  and  old,  strange  and  familiar. 

The  waters  of  the  West  which  washed  upon 
264 


THE  DEAD  DYNASTY 

this  alien  shore  the  Ford  and  the  American  loco- 
motive and  my  kodak  had  also  left  lying  here, 
among  these  fairy  palaces,  the  tiny  plant — lib- 
erty— feeble  enough  as  yet,  but  winding  its 
tender,  tenacious  tendrils  around  the  decaying 
skeleton  of  a  dead  dynasty  and  over  the  proud 
face  of  the  silent  queen. 

Occasionally  a  man  thinks  that  sort  of  thing, 
and  once  in  a  while  is  daring  enough  to  write  it. 

But  my  friend  broke  the  spell.  He  was  point- 
ing to  a  stone  chalice. 

"This  was  the  vase,"  he  said,  "where  every 
night  they  caught  the  dew  to  wash  the  Empress* 
face." 


265 


XXXIX 
A  CHINESE  CONGRESS 

LIKE  all  legislative  bodies,  the  Chinese  con- 
gress is  a  general  target  for  popular 
criticism.  People  pounce  upon  their  law- 
makers. I  am  not  going  into  the  reasons  for 
this.  I  simply  state  that  it  is  so. 

It  is  true  in  China.  The  young  men  who  have 
set  up  the  Chinese  Republic  have  the  idea  that  a 
democracy  is  conserved  by  its  law-making 
branch.  A  republic  is  a  government  by  law; 
therefore  the  legislative  arm  is  most  important. 
Every  legislator  appreciates  this  fact.  But  as  a 
rule  it  doesn't  appeal  to  the  people.  Legisla- 
tures and  congresses  have  such  a  sloppy  way  of 
doing  things  that  people  love  to  sit  around  and 
condemn  them. 

The  first  congress  China  had,  Yuan  Shih  Kai, 
who  wanted  to  change  from  president  to  em- 
peror, dismissed.  When  the  revolutionists  got 
their  republic  set  up  a  second  time  the  congress 
resumecf.  There  are  two  houses.  The  big  house 

266 


A  CHINESE  CONGRESS 

has  about  six  hundred  members,  the  small  one 
about  two  hundred.  I  visited  both. 

I  was  very  much  impressed  with  both  houses. 
The  small  one  is  as  quiet  as  our  United  States 
Senate,  and  the  big  one  is  a  lot  more  orderly 
than  our  House  of  Representatives. 

The  two  houses  occupy  buildings  which  were 
built  for  schools,  and  are  tucked  away  off  in  one 
corner  of  Peking,  away  from  the  palatial 
beauties  of  the  presidential  residence.  Down  in 
Washington  anyone  may  visit  Congress.  It  is 
not  easy  to  do  this  in  Peking.  First,  permission 
must  be  obtained.  Armed  with  a  permit,  I  set 
off  for  the  House  of  Representatives. 

About  three  hundred  feet  away  from  the  en- 
trance a  couple  of  soldiers  dropped  their  guns 
across  the  path,  and  it  was  necessary  to  produce 
the  permit.  But  this  was  not  sufficient.  They 
wanted  our  names.  So  we  passed  in  our  cards 
and  walked  along  through  files  of  soldiers.  Once 
inside  the  building,  a  soldier  took  my  cane  away 
and  directed  me  up  a  small  stairway  which  led 
into  a  very  narrow  gallery,  along  which  at  inter- 
vals of  about  ten  feet  soldiers  were  stationed. 
The  legislators  were  seated  as  they  are  in  our 
Congress — in  a  semi-circle  of  small  desks.  They 
have  a  calendar  which  they  mimeograph,  and  a 
calendar  was  on  each  desk.  The  speaker  sits  on 

267 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

a  raised  dais,  with  the  clerks  and  reporters  in 
front  of  him.  At  his  side  are  chairs  for  mem- 
bers of  the  cabinet,  who  attend  the  session,  and, 
unlike  our  cabinet  members,  can  be  questioned. 
The  chairman  doesn't  use  a  gavel,  but  a  small 
hand  bell. 

The  members  were  mostly  young.  Nearly  all 
of  them  were  in  Chinese  dress  and  kept  on  their 
skull  caps.  Those  dressed  in  European  attire 
removed  their  hats.  Most  of  these  young  men 
were  from  the  "gentry,"  the  professional  land- 
holding  classes,  not  merchants.  Nearly  all  of 
them  have  been  educated  abroad — the  majority 
of  them  in  Japan.  They  use  in  speaking  a  com- 
mon dialect,  but  if  a  speaker  should  lapse  into 
his  native  provincial  tongue,  as  they  do  occa- 
sionally, few  present  could  understand  him. 
This  necessity  of  selected  language  must  have  a 
lot  to  do  with  shortening  speeches,  for  none  of 
the  addresses  I  heard  had  the  appearance  of  the 
long,  dreary  harangues  which  make  our  Con- 
gress so  dreadfully  wearing  on  a  spectator. 

In  the  house  the  question  up  was  one  over  the 
representation  to  be  allowed  the  province  of 
Mongolia.  It  was  a  minor  question,  and  it  was 
handled  very  much  as  our  Congress  would 
handle  a  similar  proposition.  There  is  a  differ- 
ence in  putting  votes,  however,  which  interested 

268 


A  CHINESE  CONGRESS 

me.  The  speaker  puts  only  the  affirmative  side : 
"Those  in  favor  of  the  question  will  rise  to  their 
feet."  If  apparently  a  majority  rise,  the  nega- 
tive is  not  put.  In  our  Congress  the  speaker 
says:  "Those  in  favor  say  aye";  then,  "Those 
opposed  say  no."  If  it  is  close,  someone  calls 
for  a  division.  Then  the  speaker  says:  "Those 
in  favor  rise";  then,  "Those  opposed  rise,"  the 
speaker  counting  each  side.  If  someone  doubts 
his  count,  he  can  demand  tellers,  and  the  mem- 
bers are  passed  in  a  file  between  two  members, 
who  count  them.  The  Chinese  method  is  the 
better  method,  in  my  opinion.  It  expedites 
business.  It  has  one  danger:  It  lodges  rather 
arbitrary  power  in  the  speaker,  who  might 
fudge.  I  said  as  much  to  Mr.  C.  T.  Wang,  presi- 
dent of  the  Chinese  Senate,  but  he  said  they 
had  taken  care  of  that  by  providing  for  a  direct 
challenge  of  the  vote  if  someone  doubted  it. 
The  Chinese  were  anxious  to  put  in  an  auto- 
matic electrical  voting  device,  but  the  manufac- 
turer would  not  guarantee  it.  But  the  device  is 
perfectly  practical,  and  it  ought  to  be  adopted 
both  by  China  and  the  United  States.  The 
amount  of  time  consumed  by  roll  calls  down  in 
Washington  is  absurd,  and  if  the  people  knew 
the  facts  there  would  be  a  national  scandal. 
For  the  consumption  of  time  is  one  of  the  most 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

dangerous  propositions  in  American  politics. 
Congress  fools  along  until  a  lot  of  very  impor- 
tant appropriation  bills  jam  up  the  close  of  a 
session,  and  then  the  measures  are  rammed 
through  so  that  no  one  knows  what  is  happen- 
ing. Ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  all  the  foolish 
work  that  ever  happened  in  Congress  at  Wash- 
ington has  taken  place  at  the  end  of  sessions. 
The  fool  practice  has  cost  American  taxpayers 
millions. 

I  asked  President  Wang  what  the  Chinese 
were  going  to  do  about  the  calendar  at  the  end 
of  a  session.  He  said  they  had  never  had  an 
end  of  a  session  and  he  didn't  know.  In  state 
legislatures  in  America  we  select  a  paring  com- 
mittee which  puts  a  few  bills  at  the  head  of  the 
the  calendar  and  lets  the  other  bills  die.  In 
congress  certain  bills,  such  as  appropriation  bills, 
are  called  privileged  and  have  the  preference  by 
right.  But,  so  far  as  actual  consideration  is 
concerned,  this  privilege  in  the  case  of  a  bill 
jam  at  the  close  of  congress  is  a  farce.  It  is 
made  so  by  the  way  congress  consumes  time 
needlessly  during  the  session.  Quick  roll  calls 
would  help  in  the  situation.  But  you  will  never 
find  a  stand-pat  leader  in  favor  of  automatic 
voting  devices. 

The  Chinese  have  another  scheme  which  is 
270 


A  CHINESE  CONGRESS 

quite  revolutionary.  It  is  the  hardest  thing  on 
earth  to  get  men  to  attend  committee  meetings. 
You  can  hustle  them  out  to  a  vote  in  congress, 
but  it  is  pulling  tacks  to  get  them  into  the 
committee  rooms.  The  Chinese  congress  has 
sought  to  overcome  this  by  fining  a  member  ten 
dollars  for  every  absence,  and  after  the  third 
offense  he  is  put  out  of  congress. 

The  speaker  does  not  use  his  bell  often.  In  our 
legislative  bodies  the  chairman  has  to  whack 
with  his  gavel  a  good  deal  to  keep  order.  So 
far  this  is  not  necessary  in  the  Chinese  con- 
gress, and  there  is  no  limitation  on  the  length 
of  speeches,  the  filibuster  being  as  yet  unknown. 
But  that  will  come  in  time.  Since  the  begin- 
ning of  congress  there  has  been  but  one  serious 
fracas — it  was  over  the  question  of  state's  rights 
— and  a  lot  of  ink  wells  were  thrown. 

This  fracas  has  cost  a  lot  of  legislative  pres- 
tige in  China.  People  say,  "Those  fool  legisla- 
tors," and  all  that.  But  before  I  join  in  that 
chorus  I  will  have  to  do  a  little  more  thinking 
about  the  assault  on  Charles  Sumner,  as  well  as 
about  several  lively  scratching  bouts  I  have  seen 
in  congress  myself. 

The  things  I  saw  in  the  Chinese  congress 
were  almost  exact  duplications  of  scenes  in  our 
own  congress.  A  young  man  arose  to  speak. 

271 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

It  was  evidently  his  maiden  effort.  He  was 
greeted  with  a  round  of  applause  from  his 
admirers — the  half-humourous,  mock-enthusias- 
tic applause  which  I  have  heard  hundreds  of 
times  at  home.  The  member  blushed  furiously 
and  made  his  way  to  the  tribune,  the  raised 
place  from  which  an  orator  speaks  here.  He 
cleared  his  throat  and  dragged  out  from  among 
his  clothes  a  manuscript  and  started  in  on  the 
speech  of  his  life.  And  then,  as  the  applause 
didn't  come,  his  voice  grew  weaker,  and  when 
he  finished  the  meager  hand-clapping  which  fol- 
lowed was  like  a  verdict  of  guilty.  A  square- 
headed  Chinese  down  in  front  arose  to  reply. 
He  was  a  leader.  You  could  tell  it  without  look- 
ing. His  words  came  snappy  and  sharp.  His 
sentences  followed  quick  and  decisively.  He  got 
the  applause  going  and  he  got  under  it  and 
pushed  it  along  in  the  good  old  style  of  a  prac- 
ticed orator.  And  he  carried  his  point. 

The  life  of  a  republic  is  in  its  legislation.  The 
fountain  of  that  vitality  is  in  the  popular  assem- 
bly. The  young  Republicans  of  China  have  that 
idea,  and  they  are  trying  to  carry  it  out.  They 
may  not  do  it.  The  legislature  is  not  popular 
either  with  the  people  or  with  the  officials. 
Both  say:  "Congress  has  been  in  session  for 
months,  and  what  has  it  done?  Nothing."  It 

272 


A  CHINESE  CONGRESS 

sounds  serious.  And  in  a  new  republic  it  is. 
But  I  have  heard  that  a  good  many  times  in  the 
United  States  and  nothing  ever  came  of  it. 
And  nothing  may  come  of  it  in  China. 

Indeed,  in  the  matter  of  legislative  assemblies, 
we  are  still  in  our  democratic  babyhood.  We  are 
all  developing  our  popular  government  lungs  and 
it  isn't  fatal,  if  we  do  occasionally  get  on  people's 
nerves. 


273 


XL 
THE  HABIT  OF  BREAKING  LOOSE 

THERE  is  one  aspect  of  China  over  which  I 
am  in  difficulty.    I  want  to  tell  you  about 
it  and  I  fear  I  cannot.    But  I  am  going  to 
try.    It  has  to  do  with  the  occasional  inexpli- 
cable attitude  of  the  Chinese  mind. 

In  Peking  I  dined  with  several  leading  Chinese 
— leaders  in  the  new  Republic.  Intellectually 
they  were  the  equals  of  the  big  men  I  met  dur- 
ing the  war  in  London  and  Paris,  and  the  eve- 
ning was  virtually  the  same  as  you  would  pass 
at  dinner  in  the  White  House  at  Washington. 
We  talked  politics,  war,  literature,  and  eventu- 
ally we  got  into  the  subject  of  antiques.  One 
member  of  the  party,  an  American  guest,  roared 
because  a  Chinese  general  in  charge  of  the  anti- 
quities in  the  Forbidden  City  had  his  soldiers 
wash  the  green  fuzz  off  the  bronzes — fuzz  that 
it  had  taken  centuries  of  care  to  acquire  He 
was  so  severe  in  his  criticism  that  I  finally  said : 
"Oh,  well,  fighting  men  are  fighting  men. 
274 


THE  HABIT  OF  BREAKING  LOOSE 

You  can't  expect  a  general  10  be  an  antiquarian." 

"No,"  said  Admiral  Tsai,  who  had  hitherto 
taken  no  part  in  the  conversation.  "That  gen- 
eral was  probably  too  antiquated  to  be  an 
antiquarian." 

Now,  there  is  no  race  on  earth  that  has  a 
finer  appreciation  of  the  old  and  artistic  than 
the  Chinese,  but  here  was  one  general  who 
didn't,  and  he  broke  loose. 

I  had  lunch  with  President  Tsur  of  Tsing  Hua 
College  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Chiao.  I  never  had 
more  delightful  converse.  Mr.  Tsur  is  a  scholar 
full  of  the  most  interesting  and  practical  views 
of  education.  Mr.  Chiao  is  as  companionable  a 
man  as  you  could  meet  anywhere.  His  wife, 
Mrs.  Chiao,  a  beautiful  Chinese  woman,  was  as 
charming  and  intellectually  as  interesting  a 
hostess  as  I  have  ever  met.  After  lunch  I 
addressed  the  students  in  the  college  on  the 
benefits  of  patriotism  to  the  present  Chinese 
Republic. 

Now,  my  speech  was  the  usual  Fourth  of  July 
effort.  But  the  lecturer  who  preceded  me  on 
that  same  platform  was  a  Chinese  who  had 
broken  loose.  This  was  Mr.  Su  Chung-Hsuan. 
He  was  sent  by  the  Confucian  association,  and 
for  two  hours  and  a  half  he  talked  on  the  theory 
that  the  aarth  is  absolutely  flat.  His  idea  is 

275 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

that  the  earth  is  a  circular  plane.  In  the  center 
of  this  plane  is  the  North  Pole  surrounded  by 
an  icy  sea.  Peary  and  Amundsen  simply  went 
to  the  same  place  and  deceived  themselves  into 
thinking  one  was  the  North  Pole  and  the  other 
the  South  Pole.  He  contended  that  the  world 
did  not  revolve,  for  if  it  did  the  idea  of  "above" 
and  "below"  would  be  ridiculous.  For  instance, 
I  am  in  China  and  you  are  in  America.  Are  you 
"above"  or  "below"  me?  Chung-Hsuan's  propo- 
sition was  that  the  earth  moves  slightly  up  and 
down.  The  sun  travels  above  or  below  the  rim 
of  the  earth,  causing  the  seasons.  That  is,  the 
sun  does  move.  But  what  about  day  and  night  ? 
Chung-Hsuan  had  an  answer  for  that,  all  right. 
He  says  that  the  sun  at  noon  begins  to  draw 
away  from  the  earth  and  at  night  has  got  so 
far  away  you  simply  cannot  see  it,  and  that  it 
comes  into  view  again  by  approaching  the  earth 
the  next  morning.  He  denied  the  existence  of 
gravitation  flatly.  Chung-Hsuan  had  simply 
broken  loose. 

China  owes  as  much  to  Dr.  Sun-Yat-Sen  as 
she  does  to  anybody  on  earth.  Sun  is  a  glorious 
dreamer.  Years  ago  he  conceived  the  idea  of  a 
Chinese  Republic.  No  more  daring  idea  ever 
fomented  in  the  mind  of  man.  Here  were  four 
hundred  million  age-old  serfs,  most  of  them  inar- 

276 


THE  HABIT  OF  BREAKING  LOOSE 

ticulate,  and  here  was  a  government  so  conserv- 
ative that  it  scarcely  recognized  the  existence 
of  the  rest  of  the  world,  which  it  dismissed  as 
negligible  and  barbarian.  Armed  with  nothing 
but  a  dream  of  democracy,  Sun  went  up  and 
down  the  world  telling  men  of  his  dream  and 
exhorting  them  to  see  the  vision.  He  finally  be- 
came prominent  enough  to  challenge  the  atten- 
tion of  his  government.  He  was  hunted  and 
hounded  from  country  to  country.  He  hid 
among  the  rocks  of  the  desert  and  in  the  hovels 
of  the  poor.  He  lived  on  the  locusts  and  wild 
honey.  But  never  for  one  moment  did  he  sur- 
render one  jot  or  tittle  of  his  dream  of  self- 
governed  China.  His  dream  grew,  but  it  re- 
mained a  dream,  and  gossamery  and  diaphanous 
a  dream  as  it  was,  when  it  collided  with  the 
Manchu  autocracy,  the  autocracy  was  so  frail 
that  it  burst  like  a  bubble,  and  Sun's  dream 
suddenly  came  true. 

Sun,  as  was  fitting,  was  the  first  president  of 
China.  The  first  thing  he  did  was  to  break 
loose.  The  Republic  was  proclaimed  at  Nan- 
king. Dominating  this  city  is  a  hill,  the  Purple 
mountain.  When  the  Manchus  conquered  China, 
the  last  of  the  Mings,  a  very  good  man,  died, 
and  his  spirit,  according  to  legend,  could  have 
gone  to  heaven.  But  Ming's  spirit  refused  to 

277 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

do  so.  It  remained  right  on  the  tip  top  of  this 
mountain.  Every  morning  the  spirit  came  down 
and  asked  the  shepherds,  "Have  the  Chinese 
regained  control  of  China?"  For  three  hundred 
years  the  peasants  had  to  answer,  "Not  yet." 
Well,  as  soon  as  Sun  became  president  he  lined 
his  army  up  in  two  rows  leading  from  Nanking 
to  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  and  then  bright  and 
early  one  morning  he  announced  to  the  air, 
"The  Chinese  have  reconquered  China."  There- 
upon Ming's  spirit  quit  the  mountain  top  and 
went  to  heaven,  satisfied. 

Sun  didn't  remain  president  long.  The  exi- 
gencies of  politics  made  it  necessary  to  put  Yuan 
Shih  Kai  in  the  executive  chair.  But  part  of 
the  deal  was  the  appointment  of  Sun  as  minister 
of  communications  at  thirty  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  He  had  a  special  car  and  he  rode  around 
over  China  dreaming  dreams  about  railroad  con- 
struction. In  his  car  he  had  a  big  glass  map  of 
China,  a  pot  of  black  paint  and  a  sponge.  He 
would  sit  in  front  of  this  map  and  study  it. 
Then  he  would  jump  to  his  feet,  draw  a  black 
line  from  one  town  to  another,  consider  it  a 
while  and  then  jump  and  sponge  out  the  line  and 
draw  another  somewhere  else.  He  was  always 
drawing  imaginary  railroad  lines  and  rubbing 
them  out  again.  He  had  no  money  to  build  rail- 

278 


THE  HABIT  OF  BREAKING  LOOSE 

road  lines,  and  a  little  matter  like  grades  was 
not  in  his  calculations.  He  was  too  busy  dream- 
ing to  be  oppressed  by  such  incidentals.  When, 
in  1913,  it  was  believed  that  Yuan  Shih  Kai  was 
getting  ready  to  throw  the  Republic  overboard, 
Sun  and  the  radicals  revolted.  They  were  put 
down  by  Yuan.  Sun  fled  to  Japan,  and  from 
there  worked  up  the  revolution  which  finally, 
with  the  aid  of  Yuan's  sudden  death,  put  the 
Republic  on  it's  feet.  In  doing  this  Sun  spent  a 
million  dollars. 

Now,  this  is  all  likely  to  give  the  wrong  im- 
pression. The  Chinese  republic  is  getting  along 
in  pretty  good  shape.  Every  day  the  govern- 
ment lasts,  those  concerned  like  it  better.  If  it 
can  keep  on  its  feet  a  few  years  longer,  the  whole 
Chinese  people  will  come  into  a  national  con- 
sciousness which  will  insure  permanency  of  a 
republican  form.  But,  at  the  same  time,  the 
world  must  expect  severe  strains  on  its  hopeful- 
ness. There  was  Chang  Hsun,  for  instance. 
Chang  Hsun  was  the  dowager  empress'  hostler. 
He  helped  her  escape  out  of  Peking  during  the 
Boxer  troubles.  She  made  him  a  general  for 
this.  He  collected  and  drilled  his  own  army. 
And  when  the  revolution  came  he  took  his  army 
and  retired  along  a  railroad  line  of  which  he 
took  possession.  He  snid  he  was  favorable  to 

279 


NEW  GOVERNORS  AND  THE  OLD  REGIME 

the  Republic,  but  no  one  was  so  dead  sure  of 
that.  He  still  had  his  army,  and  he  insisted  on 
his  soldiers  wearing  pig-tails,  which  are  pro- 
hibited by  law,  and  he  supported  his  force  by 
levying,  in  a  perfectly  arbitrary  fashion,  local 
taxation.  There  were  members  of  parliament 
who  talked  about  impeaching  him  and  all  that, 
but  they  didn't.  Chang  Hsun  had  simply  broken 
loose,  and  they  let  it  go  at  that. 


280 


XLI 
POLITICS  AND  NANKING 

THE  first  thing  you  hear  about  when  you 
reach  China  are  the  Mings  and  the  last 
thing  that  follows  you  like  an  echo  when 
you  are  leaving  China  are  the  Mings.    Now,  I 
have  investigated  the  Mings  at  Nanking. 

If  you  see  anything  that  looks  old  and  curious, 
the  Chinaman  who  has  it  to  sell  tells  you  it  be- 
longed to  the  Ming  dynasty.  The  other  day  in 
a  curio  shop  I  inquired  about  an  old  dagger 
which  was  for  sale  at  an  extravagant  figure,  and 
the  Chinese  told  me  it  belonged  to  the  Ming 
dynasty. 

Right  back  of  me  was  one  of  the  small  heating 
stoves  which  are  common  in  China.  They  are 
only  a  little  larger  than  a  quart  bottle,  and  they 
usually  have  cast  on  their  fronts  names  like 
"The  Pride  of  the  World."  I  made  believe  I  had 
lost  interest  in  the  dagger,  and  I  fixed  a  fasci- 
nated eye  on  that  stove.  "Does  that  belong  to 
the  Ming  dynasty?"  I  asked. 

281 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

Then  the  Chinese  began  to  laugh — with  his 
mouth,  his  chest,  his  stomach  and  lastly  with 
his  eyes — the  last  thing  a  Chinaman  laughs 
with.  He  knew  I  was  a  sucker,  but  he  didn't 
dream  that  I  could  be  sucker  enough  to  believe 
that  stove  was  antique.  After  a  while  he 
quieted  down,  and  then  he  suddenly  broke  out 
again  in  convulsions.  The  second  time  he  was 
laughing  at  himself  for  having  laughed  at  me. 

But  he  quit  talking  Ming  dynasty  to  me.  The 
Mings  were  the  last  pure  Chinese  rulers  before 
the  Tartars  and  Manchus  butted  into  Chinese 
history.  They  set  up  in  the  king  business  about 
seventy-five  years  before  Columbus  discovered 
America.  Nanking  was  their  capital.  That 
was  why  I  came  to  Nanking.  I  arrived  Christ- 
mas Day  with  the  mercury  around  zero — the 
Chinese  call  it  "five-coat  weather,"  and  most  of 
them  haven't  as  many  as  two. 

I  don't  suppose  there  is  another  town  like 
Nanking  in  the  world.  After  you  crawl  through 
the  city  gate  you  can't  find  it.  You  wander 
around  for  miles,  watching  people  working  on 
farms  and  feeding  stock  and  chopping  down 
trees,  but  you  don't  see  any  town.  You  will 
lollow  a  paved  street  right  through  a  farm  and 
over  a  great  bridge  that  doesn't  cross  anything 
and  leads  from  a  cow  lot  to  a  barnyard.  It 

282 


LIMESTONE  CLIFFS  OF  THE  BELLOWS  GORGE 


POLITICS  AND  NANKING 

looks  a  lot  like  an  American  township  would  if 
somebody  built  a  thirty-foot  wall  all  around  it. 
But  if  you  keep  going  as  I  did  in  Nanking,  you 
will  find  the  town,  eight  miles  away  from  the 
gate  you  entered,  tucked  away  in  one  corner 
like  a  handful  of  wheat  in  a  bushel  basket. 

You  begin  to  realize  long  before  you  reach 
the  town  that  something  has  happened  to  Nan- 
king. What  has  happened  to  it  is  politics.  It 
has  figured  in  Chinese  politics  since  300  B.  C. 
As  soon  as  it  was  founded  rival  kings  began  to 
fight  over  it,  and  every  warrior  who  happened 
along  took  a  swipe  at  the  place.  It  is  little 
wonder  that  there  is  so  little  of  it  left.  And 
the  worst  of  it  is  that  the  politicians  are  still 
at  it.  In  the  old  days  when  the  kings  of  the 
north  wanted  a  little  diversion  at  the  expense 
of  the  kings  of  the  south  they  got  up  an  army 
and  besieged  Nanking.  Then  when  the  Taiping 
rebels  a  half  century  or  so  ago  concluded  to  belt 
the  Ching  dynasty  they  took  Nanking  and  de- 
stroyed most  of  it.  And  when  the  revolutionists 
who  set  up  the  present  government  decided  to 
strike  they  pounced  on  Nanking.  Here  the  new 
republic  was  declared.  If  the  republic  capsizes 
and  someone  lands  on  the  throne,  the  first  thing 
he  will  do,  after  he  gets  his  crown  on  straight, 
will  be  to  come  down  and  shoot  up  Nanking. 

283 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

You  can't  say  the  people  here  don't  like  it.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  being  destroyed  seems  to  come 
perfectly  natural  to  them.  Their  wall  is  twenty- 
two  miles  long,  and  it  encloses  more  ruins  than 
any  wall,  big  or  little*  on  this  terrestrial  ball. 
You  can  see  ruins  in  all  possible  stages.  Most 
of  the  former  town  has  gone  back  to  fanning, 
but  if  the  farmer  undertook  to  stir  up  the  sub- 
soil a  bit  he  would  plow  into  a  temple  or  a  palace 
of  an  ancient  day,  like  as  not.  Every  fresh  set 
of  fighters  joy  in  adding  to  the  collection  of 
ruins.  Six  years  ago  the  Manchu  City,  a  sep- 
arate town  within  the  main  walls,  was  the  pride 
of  the  place.  In  the  midst  of  this  Manchu  City, 
however,  was  a  ruin — all  that  was  left  of  the 
first  Ming  emperor's  palaces.  When  the  recent 
revolutionists  took  Nanking  they  destroyed  the 
Manchu  City,  but  spared  the  Ming  ruins.  And 
the  Ming  ruins  look  modern  and  up-to-date  now 
compared  with  that  Manchu  City.  Talk  about  a 
tornado.  No  tornado  ever  threshed  a  building 
into  brick  dust  as  those  Chinese  revolutionists 
pulverized  that  Manchu  City.  They  literally 
wiped  it  out,  actually  not  leaving  one  stone  upon 
another.  I  have  seen  the  destruction  at  the 
battle  front  in  Europe.  I  never  saw  such  de- 
struction as  I  witnessed  in  Nanking.  It  is 
awful.  For  miles  the  ground  is  a  dead  waste  of 

284 


POLITICS  AND  NANKING 

broken  brick  and  shattered  stone,  in  the  midst 
of  which  are  the  Ming  ruins  looking,  for  ruins, 
quite  neat  and  nifty. 

It  doesn't  seem  to  affect  the  citizens  at  all. 
As  I  said,  they  sort  of  specialize  in  ruins.  This 
was  the  place  where  they  used  to  have  the  civil 
service  examinations  in  China.  The  examina- 
tion hall  is  now  a  ruin,  its  20,000  cells,  where 
they  used  to  keep  the  students  cooped  up  for  a 
week  to  prevent  them  from  cribbing,  all  gaping 
at  the  sky.  The  finest  pagoda  in  China  used  to 
be  here,  built  entirely  of  fine  blue  porcelain.  All 
that  is  left  of  it  is  the  big  China  button  which 
was  once  its  top-knot. 

But  the  greatest  ruin  that  Nanking  can  boast 
is  the  tomb  of  the  first  Ming  emperor  and  his 
wife,  Ma.  He  had  seventy-one  other  wives,  but 
Ma  was  the  only  one  he  cared  to  be  buried  with. 
There  are  two  authentic  portraits  of  the  first 
Ming  extant.  He  was  a  queer-looking  chap, 
with  the  slantingest  of  slant  eyes  and  a  chin 
that  stuck  out  like  a  door-knob.  I  have  never 
seen  such  a  chin,  and  personally  I  think  the 
artist  was  a  liar.  Ming  cleaned  out  everything 
in  China  and  set  up  his  empire  and  then  went 
to  work  to  fix  up  a  private  graveyard  which 
would  last.  He  located  it  up  against  a  moun- 
tain with  a  grand  avenue  leading  up  to  the  main 

285 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

gate  of  the  grave.  Ming  originally  was  a  cow- 
boy. He  just  naturally  took  to  animals,  and 
when  he  got  this  grand  avenue  idea  into  his 
head  he  resolved  to  establish  a  permanent 
menagerie.  He  had  artists  carve  critters  in 
pairs — camels  standing  and  kneeling,  elephants 
the  same,  also  horses  and  lions.  These  he  set 
up  along  his  grand  avenue.  In  front  of  them 
he  also  stuck  up  some  enormous  stone  men. 
There  they  stand  to  this  day.  There  they  will 
be  standing  for  the  next  ten  thousand  years.  No 
revolutionist,  though  he  have  revenge  and  ruin 
bubbling  out  of  him  at  every  pore,  will  be  able 
to  demolish  them.  They  were  put  there  to  stay. 
And  they  will.  But  they  are  in  ruins,  just  the 
same.  The  grand  avenue  has  disappeared. 
The  animals,  when  I  saw  them,  were  standing 
in  the  midst  of  a  winter  wheat  field,  the  green 
crop  growing  right  up  under  their  bellies,  and  I 
saw  a  humble  husbandman  wiping  the  mud  off 
his  hoe  on  the  hind  leg  of  one  of  the  great 
Ming's  pet  lions. 

In  this  frail  and  fragile  world  it  is  hard  to 
beat  the  tooth  of  Time.  She  feeds  insatiably 
upon  the  pride  and  pomp  of  the  centuries,  crush- 
ing between  her  merciless  molars  the  glories  of 
the  past.  But  old  Ming  certainly  gave  her  some- 
thing to  gnaw  that  will  hold  her  a  while. 

286 


XLII 
THE  LESSON  OF  THE  GREAT  WALL 

WHAT  does  the  great  wall  of  China  look 
like?  I  had  always  wanted  to  know 
myself,  and  I  found  out.  A  good  many 
westerners  have  visited  the  wall  of  China,  but 
it  is  dollars  to  doughnuts  that  no  white  man 
ever  saw  it  on  a  colder  day  than  I  did.  There 
was  no  one  about,  and  the  only  sign  of  life  dur- 
ing my  whole  visit  at  Chunglingchiao  was  a  line 
of  bobbing  camels  as  they  jingled  their  way 
through  a  great  gate  on  out  to  Mongolia.  No 
doubt  you  have  forgotten  the  main  facts  about 
the  Great  Wall  as  you  learned  them  at  school. 
The  wall  is  fifteen  hundred  miles  long.  It  was 
built  by  the  Chinese,  starting  about  300  B.  C.,  to 
keep  the  northern  hordes  out  of  the  country.  It 
didn't  do  it. 

Now,  I  have  been  trying  all  my  life  to  find  out 
more  than  this  about  the  Great  Wall,  and  I  never 
could.  Nor  can  I  now — history  is  as  silent  as  a 
clam  about  it.  Indeed,  there  are  only  two  facts 

287 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

in  connection  with  it:  It  was  built  and  there  it 
stands.  I  had  a  feeling  as  I  looked  upon  it  that 
I  could  take  that  much  or  let  it  alone. 

Having  concluded  to  take  it,  you  can  simply 
throw  the  bridle  off  your  imagination,  open  the 
pasture  gate  and  let  your  fancy  kick  up  its  heels 
to  its  heart's  content.  That  is,  you  can  indulge 
in  any  sort  of  dream  and  yet  not  measure  up  to 
the  fact  that  the  wall  is  the  most  stupendous 
piece  of  handicraft  on  earth. 

It  is  not  only  stupendous  because  of  its  length, 
but  because  its  builders  backed  away  from  no 
natural  barriers.  If  Pike's  Peak  had  been  in  the 
road  of  that  wall,  the  builders  would  have  strung 
it  over  that  rocky,  snow-bound  pinnacle  like  a 
necklace  of  pearls.  For  the  wall,  where  I 
studied  it,  crawls  like  a  snake  up  sheer  preci- 
pices, drops  down  break-neck  ledges  and  squirms 
over  needle-pointed  peaks  with  every  appearance 
of  having  been  reared  to  win  some  sort  of  a  bet 
that  it  could  be  done. 

This  effect  of  grotesque  magnitude  is  empha- 
sized by  the  seeming  herd  of  walls  which  you 
find  all  about  you.  You  face  the  wall  at  one 
point  and  watch  it  worm  its  way  over  the  top  of 
a  mountain  and  lose  itself  at  the  crest.  Then 
you  can  turn  squarely  around  and  you  will  find 
it  twisting  along  the  hills  back  of  you.  WhicK- 

288 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  GREAT  WALL 

ever  way  you  turn  you  confront  the  wall,  and 
every  step  you  take  changes  your  view  of  it  and 
brings  new  sections  of  it  into  sight,  to  the  front 
and  rear  and  to  either  side.  This  effect  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  builders  followed  the  back- 
bone of  the  mountain  range.  They  located  the 
structure  only  on  the  highest  points,  and  as  the 
mountains  at  this  point  are  jumbled  together 
badly  and  cross  and  criss-cross  one  another  in  a 
tangle  of  ridges,  the  wall  doubles  and  redoubles 
on  itself  in  a  completely  bewildering  way. 

When  you  begin  to  study  the  general  plan  you 
come  to  understand  why  it  was  not  an  effective 
means  of  defense.  I  have  studied  a  good  many 
walls  in  China  with  considerable  curiosity. 
Most  of  the  walls  around  Chinese  cities  are  con- 
structed on  the  theory  of  increasing  the  job  of 
the  invading  sealers  by  locating  the  wall  on  a 
steep  rock.  This  gave  the  defenders  on  the 
wall  more  of  a  chance  to  knock  the  invaders  off 
as  they  attempted  to  climb  over.  In  most  cases 
the  walls  built  on  these  rocky  cliffs  were  further 
protected  by  a  big  moat,  usually  a  string  of 
lakes,  so  that  the  invading  host  had  to  swim  for 
it  before  the  climb  began,  thus  affording  the 
defenders  opportunity  to  muss  the  attacking 
party  all  up  before  they  reached  even  the  bottom 
of  the  cliff.  But  in  all  these  cases  the  wall 

289 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

builders  were  careful  to  keep  the  grade  of  the 
top  of  the  wall  pretty  level,  or  when  a  summit 
was  to  be  mounted  to  make  the  upward  grade 
of  the  wall  gradual.  Evidently  the  reason  for 
this  was  that  the  defenders  realized  that  if  the 
wall  was  given  a  sharp  upward  turn  it  exposed 
everybody  on  that  part  of  it  to  an  angle  fire.  I 
don't  know  how  the  northern  hordes  broke  into 
China,  nor  does  anybody  else,  but  I  imagine  it 
was  done  because  the  deep  mountain  valleys  in 
this  part  of  China  made  it  impossible  for  a  wall 
to  be  defended.  Against  the  bows  and  arrows 
and  battering  rams  of  those  days  a  small  num- 
ber of  men  behind  or  rather  on  top  a  level  wall 
could  hold  an  army.  But  where  the  wall  dropped 
down  into  a  ravine  at  a  sharp  angle  everybody 
occupying  that  part  of  the  wall  must  have  been 
shot  up  in  great  shape,  and  the  invaders  un- 
doubtedly came  through  with  a  rush.  Some  of 
these  sections  of  the  wall  are  so  steep  that  they 
are  nothing  more  than  gigantic  stone  stairways, 
with  every  foot  behind  the  parapets  open  to  view 
from  the  valley — as  clear  an  invitation  to  an  en- 
filading fire  as  one  army  ever  gave  to  another. 
I  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  wall  at  several 
points  and  examined  it  with  particularity.  It  is 
about  forty  feet  high,  about  eighteen  feed  wide 
and  well  paved  on  top.  Every  five  hundred  feet 

290 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  GREAT  WALL 

there  is  a  big  square  tower.  The  wall  itself  is 
constructed  of  smooth  stand  stone,  three  by 
three  by  five  feet.  There  is  no  such  stone  in 
this  vicinity.  The  parapets  are  built  of  big 
black  brick,  about  six  times  the  size  of  modern 
building  brick,  and  so  are  the  towers.  The  wall 
is  filled  with  a  flint-like  rock  of  which  the  sur- 
rounding mountains  are  composed.  The  wall 
does  not  look  old,  but  it  does  look  stable,  the 
most  lasting  thing  I  have  ever  seen. 

I  don't  suppose  any  American  ever  comes  to 
the  great  wall  and  stands  upon  it  without  want- 
ing to  run  an  automobile  on  it.  It  would  make 
a  cracker- jack  highway.  Of  course  you  would 
have  to  cut  out  the  mountain  grades,  but  for 
most  of  the  fifteen  hundred  miles  it  is  level, 
and  with  a  little  patching  here  and  there  a  man 
could  "throw  her  into  high"  and  scoot  across 
China  with  a  view  of  the  country  beneath  him 
all  the  way.  And  if  Mr.  Ford  should  take  a  few 
millions  and  buy  the  old  thing  for  the  benefit  of 
his  future  patrons  in  China,  the  old  wall  would 
serve  for  the  first  time  in  history  its  only  prac- 
tical use  to  mankind. 

There  is  another  thing  about  the  wall.  It 
doesn't  let  you  moralize  long.  Of  course,  you 
no  sooner  plant  your  feet  on  its  ancient  stones 
than  you  begin  to  philosophize.  "Here,"  you 

291 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

say,  "is  evidence  of  a  gigantic  folly  and  a  gigan- 
tic injustice.  Here  the  labor  of  millions  of  men 
was  consumed  in  the  construction  of  a  military 
toy.  Here  humanity  was  ground  into  a  dynasty's 
monument  to  fear."  The  very  stones  are  elo- 
quent with  the  enormous  futility  of  the  work. 
But  that  mood  doesn't  last  long.  For  suppose 
China  hadn't  built  the  wall.  Suppose  that  those 
millions  of  men  had  labored  to  increase  the 
national  wealth  and  China's  coffers  had  filled  to 
bursting  with  gold  and  she  had  waxed  great  and 
proud  and  self-sufficient,  as  she  surely  would 
have.  The  northern  hordes  would  have  come 
and  taken  the  country  anyway.  The  wall  didn't 
stop  them.  Neither  would  a  national  prosperity 
have  stopped  them.  For,  if  you  get  any  lesson 
out  of  the  wall  at  all,  it  is  just  this,  that  neither 
a  wall  nor  wealth  is  an  adequate  means  of 
defense.  A  nation's  best  defense  is  in  the  spir- 
itual grace  and  the  individual  courage,  mental, 
moral  and  physical,  of  its  citizens.  And  the 
greater  that  grace  and  courage  the  less  empha- 
sis it  puts  on  the  necessities  of  defense.  The 
old  Romans  had  a  saying  that  a  warrior  should 
develop  his  right,  his  sword  arm,  and  let  his 
left,  the  shield  arm,  take  care  of  itself.  The  old 
Chinese  dynasty  which  built  the  wall  and  lost  it 
paid  too  much  attention  to  its  left  arm. 

292 


XLIII 
CHINA'S  CHIEF  REFORMER 

DR.  SUN-YAT-SEN,  the  first  president  of 
the  Chinese  republic,  said  to  me  at  his 
home  in  Shanghai:  "As  our  government 
problems  arise  and  we  proceed  to  solve  them  we 
must  have  patience.  If  you  don't  start  right, 
right  at  the  beginning,  then  you  must  work 
always  thereafter  with  your  problems,  because 
you  did  not  start  right." 

Now,  I  am  pretty  certain  that  that  statement 
seems  quite  commonplace.  It  did  to  me  at  first. 
But  as  I  mulled  it  over,  it  grew  to  be  quite 
remarkable.  If  you  will  read  it  over  again,  you 
Jrill  see  a  whole  encyclopedia  in  it. 

Most  of  the  great  religious  leaders,  the  histo- 
rical crusaders  and  the  political  reformers  of 
first  magnitude  argue  from  a  premise  of  perfec- 
tion. That  is,  a  perfect  condition  is  possible,  if 
man  would  accept  it.  It  becomes  impossible  be- 
cause man  muddles  his  own  situations.  This  is 
the  story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  the  intro- 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

duction  of  Sin.  A  poor  start  necessitated  the 
Mosaic  code.  It  is  also  the  story  of  the  sledge 
hammer  insistence  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Sermon 
and  the  stubborn  popular  rejection  of-  it 
which  necessitated  the  involved  dialectics  of 
Paul.  It  also  is  the  story  of  the  ideal  of  the 
American  colonies,  and  the  compromise  in  the 
constitution,  which  necessitated  the  desperately 
jealous  care  of  the  democracy  by  contending 
political  parties  ever  since.  Dr.  Sun-Yat-Sen 
holds  that  liberty  is  a  condition  which  man  may 
know  by  accepting,  but  which  if  he  rejects,  in 
ever  so  slight  a  degree,  he  must  thereafter 
struggle  perpetually  to  attain.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  all  really  great  reformers  hate,  to 
the  bottom  of  their  souls,  compromise,  the  com- 
promise which,  in  both  the  spiritual  and  political 
domain,  is  the  world's  great  tragedy,  making 
both  sanctification  and  liberty  objects  to  be 
attained,  rather  than  states  of  being  to  be 
enjoyed. 

There  is  no  question  in  my  mind  that  Dr. 
Sun-Yat-Sen  purposed  to  set  up  an  ideal  republic 
in  China.  He  had  that  slant.  But  as  soon  as  the 
Republic  was  set  up,  he  had  to  step  aside  for  a 
man  with  a  minimum  of  ideals,  but  a  maximum 
of  military  powers — Yuan  Shih  Kai.  Within 
three  years  Yuan  Shih  Kai  was  well  on  his  way 

294 


CHINA'S  CHIEF  REFORMER 

to  an  upset  of  the  Republic  and  the  institution 
of  a  monarchy.  Sun  and  others  thwarted  him 
and  re-established  the  republic,  but  the  day  of 
the  perfect  democracy  and  its  opportunity  had 
passed  away  and  the  day  of  compromise  had 
come  in.  So  that  China  hereafter  must  strug- 
gle to  encompass  liberty.  This  is  the  way  of 
the  world.  It  always  has  been.  I  was  inter- 
ested in  discovering  just  how  Dr.  Sun  viewed 
the  situation.  His  view  is  given  in  the  quota- 
tion I  have  made.  As  a  practical  politician  he 
knows  the  problems  of  China  must  be  worked 
out  with  infinite  patience  and  in  the  best  way 
the  material  in  hand  allows.  I  am  not  contend- 
ing, of  course,  that  if  Dr.  Sun  and  the  other 
reformers,  past  and  present,  had  had  their  way, 
things  would  have  been  different.  For  no  re- 
former has  ever  had  his  way. 

Moreover,  I  am  completely  satisfied  that  Dr. 
Sun  has  given  up  Utopia  as  a  model  and  is 
intensely  interested  in  the  concrete,  red-blooded 
contests  of  immediate  politics,  where  a  man 
thanks  his  stars  at  the  end  of  every  day  that  he 
has  got  so  far  without  catastrophe. 

For  instance,  I  was  met  at  the  vestibule  of 
Dr.  Sun's  home  by  a  soldier,  not  a  perfunctory, 
butler-like,  card-receiving  soldier,  but  a  man 
with  a  gun  and  a  purpose  to  stop  you,  until  he 

295 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

knew  your  business  and  had  entirely  cleared 
away  his  suspicion  that  you  had  come  to  do 
murder.  His  uniform  evidenced  that  he  had 
slept  in  the  vestibule  all  night.  He  held  me  up 
until  a  civilian  servant  got  my  card,  and  walking 
in  I  met  Dr.  Sun  face  to  face,  for  with  the  uncon- 
cern of  conventionality  characteristic  of  reform- 
ers he  was  coming  himself  to  the  door  to 
receive  me. 

He  led  me  into  a  comfortable  parlor,  without 
anything  Chinese  in  it  except  himself.  The 
walls  had  pictures  in  taste,  the  chairs  were  up- 
holstered in  leather  and  there  was  a  bright 
anthracite  fire  in  an  open  fireplace.  But  I  knew 
instantly  that  I  had  never  met  before  another 
Dr.  Sun.  There  has  been  ground  into  his  eyes 
the  inevitable  placid  resignation  of  the  man 
with  an  altruistic  idea  who  sees  it  trampled  on 
daily,  but  who  goes  on  fighting  for  its  frag- 
ments. There  are  some  people  in  China  who 
will  tell  you  that  Sun  is  a  fake.  He  isn't.  He 
is  a  tragedy.  He  has  suffered  everything  for 
his  idea  of  a  free  China.  A  good  share  of  his 
life  has  been  spent  with  a  price  on  his  head. 
But  he  has  played  his  cards  fearlessly,  and  he 
will  play  them  fearlessly  to  the  end.  And  as  I 
looked  at  him  I  knew  instinctively  that  this  man 
would  die  a  tragic  death.  It  is  as  certain  a* 

296 


CHINA'S  CHIEF  REFORMER 

sunrise  that  some  day  he  will  be  led  out  arid 
beheaded  or  shot  by  a  file  of  soldiers  who  will 
feel  afterward  that  somehow  the  wrong  thing 
was  done.  For  you  can  put  it  down  as  an  axiom 
that  no  single  forward  step  in  human  liberty 
has  ever  been  taken  but  that  somewhere,  some- 
how, sometime,  some  man  has  paid  the  price. 

There  is  to  be  found  occasionally  a  rare  silver 
dollar  in  China,  known  as  the  Sun  Dollar.  It  was 
minted  while  Sun  was  president,  and  when  Yuan 
Shih  Kai  drove  Sun  out  of  the  country  these 
coins  were  destroyed.  The  Sun  dollar  shows 
Sun  in  profile  and  makes  him  utterly  insignifi- 
cant. His  profile  is  not  so  in  fact.  I  studied  it. 
The  artist  was  simply  off  his  feed  when  the  dol- 
lar was  designed.  Sun's  face  is  strong,  his 
mouth  sensitively  kind,  his  eyes  placidly,  almost 
pleasantly  tragic.  He  is  a  little  man  wrapped 
up  in  a  sack  suit,  fairly  well  tailored  and  neatly 
pressed.  He  speaks  English  easily,  and  his 
voice  is  as  soft  as  the  purr  of  a  south  breeze 
across  the  prairie  late  in  the  afternoon  at  the 
end  of  June — that  is,  it  doesn't  vary,  and  is  so 
gentle  as  to  be  almost  sleepy. 

For  instance,  I  said:  "There  are  some  people 
in  China  who  believe  that  the  Republic  will  not 
last;  that  the  young  emperor  will  be  put  upon 
the  throne  in  Peking  again."  Without  the  sign 

297 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

of  an  accent,  without  a  gleam  in  his  dark, 
sleepy  eyes,  but  in  a  monotone  as  detached  from 
human  affairs  as  a  rumble  of  thunder  in  a  dis- 
tant cloud,  Sun  answered:  "He  would  not  stay 
long  upon  his  throne."  I  could  have  laughed 
outright,  though  I  did  not  risk  even  a  smile. 
My  mind  flashed  back  to  the  awful  wreck  of 
the  Manchu  city  at  Nanking,  to  the  starving, 
gaunt-eyed  Manchus  at  King-Chow,  to  the 
ragged,  dirty,  pitiable  Manchu  beggars  in  the 
streets  of  Peking.  No,  he  would  not  stay  long 
upon  his  throne. 

I  asked  Sun  about  a  reform  in  the  currency 
system — for  China's  system  is  atrocious.  He 
said  it  would  come.  I  asked  him  about  the  rail- 
roads. He  said  they  would  be  built.  I  asked 
him  about  a  system  of  public  schools.  It  would 
come  in  time.  I  asked  him  about  the  presence 
of  soldiers  everywhere — the  burden  they  must 
be  upon  the  people  and  the  anomaly  they  pre- 
sented in  a  republic  in  time  of  peace.  He 
answered  that  it  was  a  survival  of  an  old  idea 
of  might.  I  asked  him  about  the  element  of 
public  opinion,  and  questioned  its  existence  in 
China.  He  said  it  was  forming — that  it  was  a 
growth — and  it  is. 

I  asked  him  about  "squeeze."  Nine  out  of  ten 
white  men  in  China  will  tell  you  that  the  trouble 

298 


CHINA'S  CHIEF  REFORMER 

with  China  is  "squeeze" — the  mutual  hold-up 
which  pervades  all  public  service,  depleting  pub- 
lic revenues  and  corrupting  public  life.  Most  of 
the  foreigners  in  China  hold  that  any  reform  in 
this  respect  is  absolutely  hopeless.  Dr.  Sun 
said,  "No,  it  is  not  hopeless.  It  came  down  from 
the  old  days.  It  will  be  reasonably  corrected 
in  time." 

I  covered  the  basic  problems  of  a  republic.  In 
all  of  them  he  took  the  optimistic  view.  Yet  I 
know  that  in  doing  it  Dr.  Sun  was  fighting  the 
rear-guard  action  which  is  the  lot  of  every 
reformer.  For  once  he  had  planned  for  the 
scientific  location  of  railroads  in  China — rail- 
roads placed  to  serve  the  whole  country  with  a 
maximum  of  efficiency — something  which  no 
nation  has  yet  done,  and  none  probably  ever  will 
do.  No  crazy  man,  for  instance,  could  have 
located  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  as 
they  have  been  located  and  have  gotten  them 
crazier — and  while  we  will  work  back  to  a  coher- 
ent unified  system  in  the  end,  the  crazy  pattern 
will  always  be  with  us — because  we  didn't  start 
right.  We  didn't  think  of  the  correct  thing  in 
time.  Sun  did,  but  he  had  to  give  up. 

Once,  too,  Sun  had  the  idea  of  a  financial  sys- 
tem, based  on  the  exchange  of  the  products  of 
labor — putting  that  age-old  instrument  of  tor- 

299 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

ture — interest — on  the  shelf  with  the  rack  and 
thumb  screws.  But  the  world  prefers  to  look 
upon  its  medium  of  exchange  as  a  commodity, 
and  Sun  had  to  give  that  up,  too.  For  now  he 
is  earnestly,  purposefully  devoted  to  keeping  the 
Republic  on  its  feet  and  teaching  it  laboriously 
the  way  to  liberty.  For  "if  you  don't  start 
right,  right  at  the  beginning,  then  you  must 
work  always  thereafter  with  your  problems,  be- 
cause you  did  not  start  right." 


300 


XLIV 
AMERICAN  TRADERS  IN  THE  ORIENT 

ARE  we  Americans  making  headway  in 
trade  in  China?  We  are.  We  have 
plunged  into  the  Oriental  market  lickety- 
split.  Most  of  our  ginger  came  after  the  Euro- 
pean war  began.  The  other  nations — except 
Japan,  of  course — lost  ground  as  we  gained. 

All  other  nationals  knock  America  and  Amer- 
ican goods  so  much  that  you  just  naturally  put 
on  your  fighting  clothes  and  prepare  to  wipe  out 
all  comers. 

That  is,  you  can't  be  an  American  in  China 
without  gathering  the  entire  American  brood 
under  your  wings  and  getting  ready  to  battle  the 
whole  world.  The  oil,  the  tobacco,  the  steel 
organizations  all  look  different  in  China,  because 
they  are  American,  and  the  whole  world  is 
bucking  them  because  they  are. 

The  fact  is  that  we  have  the  rest  of  the  world 
scared  in  business.  The  Britisher  sniffs  and 
sneers  at  Americans  and  their  wares,  because  he 

301 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

is  afraid  of  us.  So  do  the  other  nationals.  I 
don't  blame  them  for  being  scared,  for  when  it 
comes  to  business,  we  are  certainly  some  little 
steppers.  For  a  long,  long  time  we  were  not 
interested  in  China — it  was  so  far  away  and  we 
were  so  busy  at  home  that  we  didn't  care.  When 
the  world  war  got  Americans  interested  in  busi- 
ness abroad  they  began  to  look  towards  China. 
Then  they  started  to  edge  in.  And  the  way 
Americans  are  doing  it  is  a  caution  and  no  mis- 
take. The  Americans  attacked  with  kerosene, 
tobacco,  sewing  machines,  typewriters,  machin- 
ery, electric  appliances,  hardware,  drugs,  dry 
goods,  canned  goods,  concrete,  structural  steel, 
printing  presses,  iron  bedsteads  and  anything 
else  which  came  handy. 

We  roll  up  the  opposition  and  throw  them 
overboard  when  it  comes  to  business.  I  don't 
think  Americans  generally  realize  just  what  we 
can  do.  We  have  traded  around  among  our- 
selves so  long  and  got  so  used  to  mutual  hard- 
hitting that  we  don't  realize  how  much  rush  and 
punch  we  have.  We  are  probably  the  greatest 
merchants  in  the  world.  We  can  get  the  goods 
out,  show  'em,  sell  'em,  bank  the  money  and 
spend  it  while  the  ordinary  trader  is  deciding 
on  what  price  tag  to  put  on  his  wares.  The 
Japanese  has  as  much  speed  as  we  have,  but  he 

302 


AMERICAN  TRADERS  IN  THE  ORIENT 

has  also  handicaps,  and  if  we  set  our  heart  on  it, 
we  will  put  him  out  of  it,  too.  One  Japanese 
handicap  is  that  he  doesn't  deliver  invariably  to 
sample.  That  is,  his  competitors  charge,  he 
sometimes  cheats.  And  you  don't  cheat  a  China- 
man twice.  We  are  pretty  slick  traders,  but  we 
don't  cheat  on  samples.  An  American  traveling 
man  told  me  that  he  got  ten  per  cent,  more  on 
the  same  contracts,  in  competition  with  the  Jap- 
anese, right  along.  We  deliver  the  goods,  as 
ordered.  The  Japanese  doesn't  always  do  that. 

The  whole  bunch  dread  us.  We  do  things  in 
such  a  slap-dash,  overwhelming  sort  of  way. 
One  of  our  oil  companies  has  tanks  planted  all 
over  China,  with  an  American  flag  fluttering 
from  every  tank.  You  can't  find  a  Chinese 
city,  no  matter  how  obscure,  that  you  won't 
stumble  across  an  American  sewing  machine 
store.  We  just  rush  in  kind  of  careless  like  and 
take  possession.  There  is  speed  to  us — speed 
that  you  can't  see  at  home  because  you  are 
used  to  it. 

There  is  another  thing  about  us  Americans 
that  you  can't  see  at  home,  but  you  do  see  in 
China.  We  are  not  high  priced  in  comparison 
with  competition,  and  we  give  every  ounce  of 
quality  possible  under  the  price.  I  can  illus- 
trate that  by  telling  about  a  traveling  cap  I 

303 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

bought — what  you  would  call  a  golf  cap.  I 
tried  a  British  store  in  Shanghai  and  they 
wanted  two  dollars  gold  for  one.  It  wasn't 
worth  it.  So  I  went  around  to  a  store  which 
had  an  American  cap  which  I  bought  for  one 
dollar  gold.  Now,  the  American  cap  wasn't  as 
good  as  the  British  cap.  The  British  cap  would 
wear  for  five  years — the  American  cap,  say,  for 
two  years.  But  the  point  is  here — who  wants 
to  wear  a  cap  for  five  years  ?  Americans  don't. 
We  turn  the  trick  by  producing  an  article  of 
middling  quality  and  we  get  a  low  price  on  it  by 
volume  of  production.  It  is  really  democracy 
creeping  into  merchandise.  There  are  some 
Britishers  better  dressed  than  Americans,  but 
there  are  more  well-dressed  Americans  than 
there  are  well-dressed  men  in  any  other  country 
under  the  sun.  That  is  to  say,  we  work  to  a 
pretty  comfortable  average  in  America,  and 
hold  it. 

In  business  we  get  along  famously  with  the 
Chinese.  In  fact,  Americans  and  Chinese  were 
made  to  trade  with  each  other.  Both  have  a 
good  deal  of  humour  in  trade.  Both  enjoy  a 
good  contest.  Both  have  a  lot  of  the  gambling 
element  in  them,  call  it  speculation  if  you  want 
a  milder  word,  and  both  are  rattling  good  losers. 
Both  are  "good  pay."  I  met  a  rich  Chinese  one 

304 


AMERICAN  TRADERS  IN  THE  ORIENT 

day,  and  in  the  course  of  conversation  accusefl 
him  of  being  a  rich  man.  "I  am  not,"  he  said. 
"I  would  be  if  I  had  all  that  was  owing  to  me." 
"How  much  is  that?"  I  asked.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"foreigners  alone  owe  me  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  that  I  will  never  see."  "Is  there  an 
American  among  them?"  I  asked.  "Not  one," 
he  said,  "not  a  single  American.  I  have  loaned 
them  thousands  upon  thousands.  But  Amer- 
icans pay." 

A  remark  like  that  makes  you  feel  pretty 
good  in  China,  particularly  if  you  have  just 
bumped  into  a  few  Europeans  who  were  roast- 
ing America. 

Now,  we  have  been  weak  on  several  points. 
One — and  it  is  minor — is  that  we  do  not  know 
how  to  pack  goods.  We  do  it  shabbily,  and  we 
lose  by  it.  We  ought  to  establish  a  school  of 
correct  packing.  Another  point,  and  it  is  a  very 
serious  one,  is  that  we  have  had  no  American 
merchant  ships  to  speak  of.  We  have  had  to 
ship  in  foreign  bottoms,  and  they  all  give  us  the 
worst  of  it.  We  will  straighten  out  both  these 
delinquencies,  and  then  nothing  will  stop  us 
from  being  the  prize  package  among  the  vendors 
of  the  world. 


305 


XLV 
THE  LEAVEN  OF  EAST  AND  WEST 

SUMMING  up  my  whole  experience  in  China, 
I  have  concluded  that  the  Chinese  Repub- 
lic will  make  a  go  of  it.  And  I  base  my 
conclusion  on  as  airy  and  fairy  a  proposition  as 
luck.  Luck  is  with  the  country. 

Now,  luck  is  a  base  intruder  in  a  world  of 
fixed  rules,  of  logical  causes  and  effects,  of  sane 
and  expected  results  arising  from  sane  endeav- 
ors. No  well-ordered  intellect  ought  to  acknowl- 
edge the  existence  of  luck  for  a  minute,  and 
every  well-ordered  intellect  does. 

The  truth  is  that  everything  in  China  argued 
against  the  institution  of  a  Republic.  The  old- 
est autocracy  in  the  world,  the  absence  of  public 
opinion,  the  inherent  pacifism  of  the  people,  the 
survival  of  ancient  customs  having  nothing  in 
common  with  democracy,  the  presence  of  the 
powers  of  the  earth  as  partners  in  every  Chinese 
proposition,  these  elements  not  only  made  the 
creation  of  a  Republic  a  fanciful  flight  of  the 

306 


THE  LEAVEN  OF  EAST  AND  WEST 

imagination,  but  its  perpetuation  a  seeming 
impossibility. 

But  the  Republic  was  created  and  it  has  hung 
on.  The  feng-shui  is  right.  Feng-shui,  as  I 
told  you,  is  the  Chinese  science  of  luck.  I  left 
China  without  mastering  even  the  rudiments  of 
the  science,  but  it  is  here,  the  Chinese  believe 
in  it  and  it  is  working  for  the  Republic. 

The  war  which  Japan  made  upon  China  and 
the  Boxer  outbreak  exposed  the  Manchu  dynasty 
as  an  empty  egg-shell.  Without  these  events 
the  democrats  of  China  could  not  have  dared 
even  to  dream.  There  was  not  enough  left  of 
the  dynasty  for  the  European  powers  to  attempt 
to  save  it.  Any  sort  of  an  old  assumption  of 
authority  shoved  into  Peking  would  have 
answered  for  a  government  in  the  absence  of 
anything.  So  the  Republic  was  set  up  on  its 
wobbly  legs.  Its  president,  Yuan  Shin  Kai, 
nursed  it  along  for  a  while  in  great  doubt  and 
then  concluded  that  it  ought  to  be  put  out  of  its 
misery.  A  few  provinces,  or  rather,  a  very  few 
men  in  a  few  provinces,  believed  that  it  ought 
not  to  be  choked  to  death  in  any  such  fashion. 
They  revolted,  and  they  were  in  the  midst  of 
their  trial  of  strength  with  Yuan  Shih  Kai  when 
the  feng-shui  operated.  Yuan  Shih  Kai  died. 
His  death,  an  undramatic,  peaceful,  stretched- 

307 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

out-in-bed  affair,  was  one  of  the  most  moving 
events  in  the  history  of  the  world.  It  did  two 
things.  First,  it  restored  the  Republic  to  its 
friends.  Second,  it  built  up  the  prestige  of  the 
Republic  among  the  people  of  China  themselves, 
convincing  them  that  the  Republic  had  the  ele- 
ments of  success  in  it. 

There  was  another  thing — every  day  the  Euro- 
pean war  continued  tamped  the  foundations  of 
the  Chinese  Republic  a  little  firmer,  a  little  more 
solid.  There  are  two  reasons  for  this.  First, 
the  European  nations  have  been  so  busy  they 
could  not  interfere  with  the  internal  affairs  of 
China,  and,  second,  the  war  brought  a  measure 
of  prosperity  to  China  itself  which  predisposes 
the  people  to  the  Republican  form.  Few  Euro- 
peans in  China  have  a  kind  word  for  the  Chinese 
Republic.  They  don't  like  Republics  anyway,  and 
they  are  inclined  to  dismiss  the  Oriental  attempt 
with  a  sneer.  If  their  hands  hadn't  been  tied, 
they  would  have  been  busy  tearing  the  Chinese 
Republic  into  little  bits,  exaggerating  every  rob- 
bery into  a  revolution  and  making  a  crime  of 
every  little  weakness  the  new  government 
showed.  But,  whether  by  feng-shui's  work  or 
not,  the  Chinese  Republic  has  been  measurably 
let  alone  by  the  superior,  and  often  over-critical, 
monarchists  from  Europe.  They  had  their 

308 


THE  LEAVEN  OF  EAST  AND  WEST 

hands  in  one  another's  hair  so  long  and  so  tight 
that  they  forgot  that  China  existed.  There  was 
one  exception — Japan.  Japan  saw  her  chance 
to  butt  in  and  grab  off  China  while  the  other 
nations  were  fighting.  She  went  at  the  job  with 
a  will,  but  it  didn't  come  through  just  as  she 
planned.  China  showed  a  little  pluck  and  de- 
layed the  game,  and  while  Japan  may  be  still 
anxious  to  gobble  up  her  big  neighbor,  every 
day  makes  it  more  and  more  improbable  that 
she  can  do  it. 

China  is  still  intact,  and  every  day  it  is  becom- 
ing a  little  more  difficult  for  her  enemies  to 
break  down  China's  confidence  in  herself.  This 
is  helped  out,  in  turn,  by  the  circumstance  that 
times  are  fairly  good  in  China,  so  far  as  Chinese 
experience  goes.  The  country  isn't  prosperous 
as  we  know  prosperity,  of  course.  China  is  a 
country  where  for  centuries  people  have  died 
by  the  hundreds  of  thousands  periodically  of 
famine.  Tens  of  thousands  are  born  hungry 
and  die  hungry.  Prosperity  doesn't  mean  in 
China  a  Ford  in  the  barn  and  a  Victrola  in  the 
parlor.  It  means  escape  from  death  through 
cold  or  starvation.  The  war  in  Europe  helped 
make  times  good  in  China.  The  Republic  gets 
some  of  the  credit  for  this.  It  would  get  all 
the  blame  if  times  were  hard. 

309 


PROMISE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  CHINA 

This  is  China  as  I  have  seen  it — an  ancient 
civilization  struggling  to  keep  afloat  as  a  new 
democracy — and  doing  it  by  main  strength, 
awkwardness  and  luck.  But  she  is  doing  it — 
and  if  she  succeeds,  there  is  coming  into  the 
world  for  four  hundred  million  human  beings  a 
greater  measure  of  happiness  than  they  and 
their  ancestors  for  four  thousand  years  have 
ever  known. 

No  man  can  be  sure  that  he  has  given  in  print 
the  impression  he  intended,  but  I  have  tried  to 
get  China  to  you  just  as  China  came  to  me, 
through  my  eyes,  ears  and  nose. 

The  big  outstanding  fact  in  my  mind  in  con- 
clusion is  this:  The  two  foremost  elements  of 
the  world  are  the  doctrines  of  Jesus  Christ  and 
democracy.  To  me  they  are  one  and  the  same; 
making  the  leaven  which  must  eventually  leaven 
the  whole  lump,  East  as  well  as  West. 


The  End. 
310 


ABOUT  OTHER  LANDS 


HENRY  CHUNG 

The  Oriental  Policy  of  the  United  States 

With  maps,  I2mo,  cloth,  net 

A  plea  for  the  policy  of  the  Open  Door  in  China,  pre- 
sented by  an  oriental  scholar  of  broad  training  and  deep 
sympathies.  The  history  of  American  diplomatic  relation- 
ships with  the  Orient,  the  development  of  the  various 
policies  and  influences  of  the  western  powers  in  China, 
and  the  imperilistic  aspirations  of  Japan  are  set  forth  ad- 
mirably. 

CHARLES  KENDALL  HARRINGTON 

Missionary  Amer.  Baptist  Ftrtign  Miss.  Society  to  Japan 

Captain  Bickel  of  the  Inland  Sea 

Illustrated,  8vo.,  cloth,  net 

"Especially  valuable  at  this  hour,  because  it  throws  a 
flood  of  light  on  many  conditions  in  the  Orient  in  which 
all  students  of  religious  and  social  questions  are  espe- 
cially interested.  We  would  suggest  that  pastors  generally 
retell  the  story  at  some  Sunday  evening  service,  for  here 
is  a  story  sensational,  thrilling,  informing  and  at  the  same 
time  a  story  of_  great  spiritual  urgency  and  power." — 
Watchman-Examiner. 

HARRIET  NEWELL  NOYES        Canton,  China 

A  Light  in  the  Land  of  Sinim 

Forty-five  Years  in  the  True  Light  Seminary, 
1872-1917.  Fully  Illustrated,  8vo.,  net 

"An  authoritative  account  of  the  work  undertaken  and 
achieved  by  the  True  Light  Seminary,  Canton,  China. 
Mrs.  Noyes  has  devoted  practically  her  whole  life  to  this 
sphere  of  Christian  service,  and  the  record  here  presented 
is  that  of  her  own  labors  and  those  associated  with  her  in 
missionary  activity  in  China,  covering  a  period  of  more 
than  forty-five  years." — Christian  Work. 

MRS.  H.  G.  UNDERWOOD 

Underwood  of  Korea 

A  Record  of  the  Life  and  Work  of  Horace  G. 
Underwood,  D.D.  Illustrated,  cloth,  net 

"An  intimate  and  captivating  story  of  one  who  labored 
nobljr  and  faithfully  in  Korea  for  thirty-one  years,  pre- 
senting his  character,  consecration,  faith,  and  indomitable 
courage." — Missions. 


BOOKS  FOR  MEN 


ROBERT   E.    SPEER.P.D.  Mtrrick  Lectures,  1911, 

Ohio  Wesleyan  University 

The  Stuff  of  Manhood 

Some  Needed  Notes  in  American  Character, 
net 

Dr.  Speer  holds  that  the  moral  elements  of  individual  char- 
acter are  inevitably  social  and  that  one  service  which  each 
man  must  render  the  nation  is  to  illustrate  in  his  own  life 
and  character  the  moral  qualities  which  ought  to  character- 
ize the  State.  To  a  discussion  of  these  ideals  and  some  sug- 
gested methods  of  their  attainment,  Dr.  Speer  devotes  this 
stirring,  uplifting  book. 

CORTLAND  MYERS^D.D.  Minister  of 

'  Tremont  Temple,  Boston 

Money  Mad 

I2tno,  cloth,  net 

The  fearlessly-expressed  views  of  a  popular  pastor  and 
preacher  on  the  all-important  question  of  Money.  Dr. 
Myers  shows  how  a  man  may  make,  save,  spend,  and  give 
money  without  doing  violence  to  his  conscience,  or  his  stand- 
ing: as  a  member  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  P.P.      Yale  University 

Five  Young  Men 

Messages  of  Yesterday  for  the  Young  Men  of  To- 
day. I2mo,  cloth, 

Dean  Brown's  literary  output  is  always  assured  of  •wel- 
come and  a  large  reading.  His  new  work  is  specially  suitable 
to  students  in  college,  or  young  men  in  business  or  in  the 
home.  But  the  ge_neral  reader  of  almost  any  type,  will  be 
able  to  find  something  of  value  in  this  latest  volume  from  the 
pen  of  a  recognized  writer  of  light  and  leading. 

DEWITT  McMURRAY    of  the  Dallas  Datly  News 

The  Religion  of  a  Newspaper  Man 

I2mo,  cloth,  net 

"Every  one  of  the  chapters  sparkles  with  a  thousand  gems 
that  Mr.  McMurray  has  dug  out  of  obscure  as  well  as  better- 
known  hiding-places  and  sprinkled  in  among  his  own  thought* 
His  quotations — and  there  are  literally  thousands  of  them—- 
are exquisitely  timed  and  placed." — Springfield  Republican. 

BURRIS  A.  JENKINS,  P.P. 

The  Man  in  the  Street  and  Religion 

,    ismo,  cloth,  net 

"In  a  convincing  and  inspiring  way  and  in  a  graceful 
style,  the  author  presses  home  this  truth,  the  result  of  years 
of  trained  study  of  human  nature.  The  book  is  the  kind 
that  'the  man  in  the  street'  well  enjoy."— Barton  Glebe, 


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